So... Can an FAL magazine be stored loaded? I'm new ish to that platform
but I would assume it would be fine. I've not had too much luck with surplus
FAL mags but I have several DSA 20 round mags. I know of their dubious
reputation but they have worked fine for me so far.

How do yall store yours?

I keep one loaded, in the rifle. The rest empty. But I don't think it harms the springs on the mags to be compressed.

not FAL mags, but AR15. Loaded some up pre Y2K (lol) and fired them off in 2017 or 2018,
worked perfectly! (they were USGI 30 rounds)

I had a Belgian FAL mag I left loaded for over 20 years. It fell in the back of the safe. It functions fine to this day.

The general consensus in the Arfcom galaxy is that the cycling of the magazine weakens the spring in a modern weapon magazine, not storage while under full load.

I have a few that I loaded in sometime in the 90's when i first bought my house.
Not worried about them in semi auto fire.

The best explanation I heard re springs under compression and wear.    You car is always bearing weight on the springs, that does not cause wear on them.  The mileage and potholes and all the bouncing works the springs, compressing and uncompressing.  A piece of metal does not break if you bend it.  Bend it 87 times and it breaks, drive your car 87,000 miles on potholed roads and your leaf and coil springs can be ready to break any day now if they haven’t already.

It’s the cycles of compressing and uncompressing that fatigues the metal.  Loading a mag and setting it on a shelf is the same as parking a car in the garage and not driving it.  It’ll be fine.

Matches my experience with rifle mags.  If anything they get gummed up some times if just sitting too long loaded, kind of gluing the ammo to the mag where it touches, but that is increased friction not the spring being weakened.  (Caused by skin oil, gun oil, dirt, corrosion, whatever…)

Pistol mags are another story…Glock mag springs at least lose force when kept loaded for a while, regardless of how much they were used or not.  I swap out primary mag springs every 3-4 years.  It can be a real big issue on Gen3 G22’s with a weapon light- they need strong, (sometimes overly strong) mag springs…

I have an engineering degree and understand the science of springs, however practical experience as an armorer and instructor doesn’t always match theoretical conditions.  Seen lots of weak as hell Glock mag springs at the range because someone who rarely ever shoots won’t buy a couple $3 replacement springs.  It is almost entirely loaded storage (actually loaded carry), not use, that has done them in.  I have seen it plenty in my own mags as well, some of which were just loaded and dumped into ammo cans in case extra ammo was needed someday.  

Anyhow- FAL mags will be fine.  Just keep them clean, don’t let them rust, maybe unload/reload once in a while so they don’t gum up.  VCI paper and desiccant are your friends when storing long term.

Half of my FAL mags are stored loaded, with half not.  (Mil-Spec used) The ONLY issue I have had was my DSA polymer mag seemed to swell when fully loaded and was hard to put in my OSW. It eventually formed a crack above the catch lip on front of the mag, so I tossed it.

Really my only real mag failures were glock 22 magazines.  Unprepared armorers would pull the spring to stretch them to get you through the day.   A prepared armorer would change the springs out.    I shot mine all the time though.   In those years I would buy fmj for practice a few sessions a month.  I cannot say about just loading and leaving them as I didn’t do that.

Anyone ever run into a problem with FAL mag lips distorting after being fully loaded for long periods of time?  I'd assume if it's not a problem with AR mags, then it wouldn't be a problem with steel mags.

Stress relaxation and creep is material and stress-level dependent.  There is no maximally-stressed firearm spring that does not experience shortening and subsequent load-loss from long periods (weeks, months, years) of static loading.  Music wire has probably the worst stress relaxation characteristics.  302 stainless and 17-7PH are a lot better.

I replaced some Glock 17 magazine springs with Wolff mystery-metal (they won't say what it is).  After initial set-removal, they lost 6.5% of free length in 3 months of being loaded, which is completely expected with Music Wire, which I assume is what it is.

The 302SS of factory Glock springs for my 12rd G26 mags only lost 2-3% of length in a comparable amount of time (after set removal).

Vehicle springs aren't even close to being maximally-stressed at rest, they might not even be maximally-stressed when running over an environmentalist at 80mph.

No one is fatiguing magazine springs to death in 100 cycles.  That's a rounding error.

The G22 is pushing an 8.5% heavier ammo stack than a G17, and in addition is just far less tolerant of weak springs or ammo velocity differences.  And the early gen 3 had one style of locking block, where the problem was fixed with an added mag spring coil.  Later gen 3’s had a different locking block, and the reliability problems came back, requiring the nuclear option mag spring for reliability on some guns  (ISMI spring designed for 20 rd competition mags, stuffed into a 15 rd mag).

They finally gave up with the Gen 5 and just used a heavier slide, like should probably have been done originally.  But the gen 1&2 models did not really anticipate adding weight to the frame with a light.

I could write a small book about it…short version, it always worked better in the original designed caliber (9mm).

Nope, they generally just get damaged from being dropped on the feed lips.

Ha!  That dovetails with the experience with the gen2 G22 I carried for 16? 18? years.  The original recoil spring rate round count for replacement was kept the same as the 9mm.  Our agency followed the Glock manual for the change interval.  After the 15 ish years of service life we suddenly had slide tabs breaking off and locking up guns.  Further examination across 350+  guns showed that a high number of them had cracks in the bent metal slide rail tabs that are molded in to the frame.   Glock warranted the guns but stipulated each gun be returned with all 3 preban magazines.

At least that is the story regarding the maintenance interval that I got from the head firearms instructor.   Obviously the .40 has more energy to engineer for, just keeping things the same as the G17 was an error on their part.  I will say we were rather good at maintenance updates.  Over the years I know we had change outs due to parts revisions to extractors, ejectors and iirc mag followers.

Over the years I had a few failures on that first issue gun.  During the academy, the extractor claw broke off the extractor,  periodic weak mag springs causing stoppages by being beat by the slide return rate.  I ended up buying a half a dozen or a dozen of my own replacement springs to keep on hand after having an unpreparedvrange cadre stretch my mag spring to get me through the day.  He didn’t intend to replace the bad one or the others that were just as old but I made a fuss as that was a temp fix that doesn’t last and got some springs a couple weeks later (i ordered my own from Brownells by then).

Yeah the .40 is just a bit much for that original design.  So many things can go out of whack and cause a problem.  I had a Gen 2 originally, got one of the first Gen3 G22’s (T&E gun that worked well with a light, so we decided to buy them for the whole agency), but then had problems with the next ones.  Fixed with new mag springs when they added a mag spring coil, then all was good for a while.  

Then Glock updated the locking block on them…Problem came back in some guns, especially the heavy use SWAT or instructor guns like mine.  (Well mine was worse as I was both actually).  Was probably less than a year before we had to swap out mag springs in most of those ones, but one gun had to just be swapped out as it still was a no go.  

So ended up with a patrol early Gen 3, and a SWAT/training late version Gen 3, first one works well with good regular +10% springs, the second one needs holy shit strong mag springs. Still have both actually.

And I played with recoil springs, heavier, lighter, etc.  mag springs were the fix.  Well the real fix finally was the heavier slide on the Gen 5 G22, but I don’t have one of those yet.

Anyhow- Then my early Gen 3 G22 (the more tolerant gun) had issues with the 22rd mags I carry for reloads, after just a couple years, and which I never used for training, just for duty and quals.  So despite having low cycle numbers, they needed springs from G18 sized mags put in them for reliability.  


Then some guy on the internet, who apparently owns a couple 9mm models, tells me I am wrong, because with his easy mode 9mm, he hasn’t seen any problems with Glock mag springs!  I guess all the issues I have seen over a couple decades of fixing guns and running classes are just invalid, since theory says the springs should hold up better than they have!  (I do think Glock should have spec’d heavier mag springs to begin with, amazingly 9mm mags never got an extra coil added to them, though Wolff springs have always had an extra coil).

Anyhow- I do hope that the Gen 5 made the G22 as easy to deal with as a G17 is.  


On the other hand, I have also seen Glocks be remarkably robust in function.  Guy broke a .45 extractor (common problem) and all I had on hand at the range was a .40 extractor, so we tried it.  Worked fine.  So well in fact that instead of getting the correct one the next day like I told him, he left it in there for a couple years, and it worked the whole time…


Anyhow, like I said, usually an AR mag with a worn out spring also looks flat out worn out anyhow.  A Glock mag, well you need to test how much force it takes to load it.  9mm tolerates weak springs a lot more than a .40 will…

I worry about the mags rusting while sitting there more than any problems with the springs "setting".  I have one particular evil FAL mag that seems to have an affinity for rusting that I can only compare to a cast iron skillet left in the rain. I have pulled that stupid one apart and "fixed" it with every method I can think of and it just likes rust - If I turn my back, it rusts.  Provided I keep it in the safe in "about to rust once it hits normal PNW air", it runs well enough other than that though.

Its a good idea to test them now and then.

Shit breaks.

Otherwise, the idea that the spring will "give out" simply from being compressed has been de-boonked about 87 times.

People worry too much about the springs and not enough about the magazine lips.  Those are most likely to fail or deform in aluminum and plastic mags (doesn't mean that it always happens, but is more likely to happen with weaker materials).  I still don't know whether it's an issue with FAL mags.

You can buy brand new Wolff springs for like $6 or $7.  

Springs do get shorter just from being loaded, especially when they're new.  Who knows if you'll lose enough tension that it won't run in the gun.  It becomes another variable in the overall equation of whether the gun will run like temp, ammo, gas setting, lube, how dirty it is, etc.  Usually rifles don't really have a big problem with this because they're just able to get enough margin built into the gun that it's ok if the spring's not perfect.  

I'd store them unloaded if you can, but I wouldn't lose sleep over having them loaded either.

Clean and lubed is all that counts.

I leave them in various states of loaded all the time.