Posted: 6/11/2006 5:56:41 PM EDT
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Ok..I bought 6 new Wilson 47 7 rounders about 2 months ago. I use 3 for carry and range work. in the last week the springs have taken a seat and are failing to lock open the slide. I called Wilson and they send out 3 new springs. I got them at Brownell's. Has anyone had, as of late, a problem with Wilson mags developing a spring seat? |
Wilsons have a weak spring tension, from what I have seen and read. The CMC powermags like to hold tension a little longer. |
Shocked, Plain and Simple, but I guess everything fails at some point or another, just first I've ever heard about a wilson mag having problems.
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Wilson 47D (8-round magazines) suffer from a couple of flaws, one of which is the spring. Generally speaking, I have found that a 6-month spring replacement cycle will usually prevent most spring tension issues. Some individual springs last MUCH longer, but others die a quick death. This is the first I have heard of a spring going south in only 2 months. The other issue with Wilson magazines is the body. Under a lot of use, the feed lips spread prematurely, which results in feeding problems and the mag fails to drop free. These issues appear to be more prevalent in later made magazines (within the last 2 years or so), but I have seen these problems in every generation of magazine. The PowerMags by CMC have excellent springs that last just about forever. The mag bodies are also made of thicker gauge steel. The downside is that they use the highly unstable Shooting Star follower, which can jump over the slide stop lobe and get stuck in the gun. The 100% answer at this point is to forego the 8-rd magazine concept (remember that it was designed as a 7-rd mag). Use a CMC PowerMag body and baseplate, ditch the spring and follower and replace it with the Tripp Research Super-7 kit. The Super-7 kit offers the following advantages: 1. Outstanding 14 coil spring made of Chrome Silicon. Lasts just about forever. 2. Self lubricating polymer follower with steel reinforced slide stop shelf 3. Follower design has long legs in front and rear for optimum stability 4. Detent helps hold last round in place to reduce the possibility of the case jumping forward of the extractor hook. Tim http://www.10-8forums.com |
I replace all of my 47D / 47 WC mags springs / followers with Tripp Research upgrade kits and stop worrying about them. Their follower ensures steel engages the slide stop. . |
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I have had Wilson magazines that have lasted years while I've had others that have lasted months. As I type this I'm wearing gun that has about 7,000 rounds through it. This particular gun has a twin that has about 10,000 rounds through it. Both of these guns have shared a set of 6 Wilson 47 7rd magazines none of which have needed any maintenance. Since I'm pretty good about rotating my magazines, this could potentially equal about 2800 rounds per magazine if everything equaled out and the magazines were rotated in perfectly even intervals. Another gun I have, one I don't shoot too much as of late, is approaching 40,000 rounds. With the occasional exception, this gun has also been used exclusively with a set of 6 Wilson 47 7rd magazines that have only each been treated to a new spring somewhere between the gun's 28,000-30,000 round mark. When I was shooting this gun regularly I was good about rotating magazines so one could project that each magazine has potentially seen somewhere between 6300 and 6600 rounds each, maybe more maybe less but this would be a good guess on my part. On the other side of the fence, a few years ago when I bought a set of 6 Wilson 47s for my twin set of carry guns I got one magazine that had a follower that would constantly push the slide stop out slightly as the slide was traveling rearward after the last round had fired. I have also had a few Wilson 47D mags that wouldn’t lock slides to the rear on guns that were normally reliable as all get out. Wilson of course replaced these magazines for me and out of the 50+ Wilson magazines I own I have had maybe 6 or so total that have had issues, most of which were the 47D. The nice thing about Wilson Combat is that they’re good about warranty issues... or at least they have been in my experience. I’ve probably gone on long enough with my personal magazine history, and I have had good and bad experiences with other magazines from McCormick, Tripp, Metalform, etc. but since this thread addresses Wilson’s mags most of that may be immaterial. What I can say for sure is this, in my experience magazines are relatively expendable, they always have been and always will be. If one plans on using a magazine in his/her carry/duty gun it should be tested extensively with his/her carry ammo... it’s pretty simple. Other than that I have discovered that there are no guarantees no matter what special formula one may concoct. Everything breaks eventually and on a long enough time line there are not perfect products or things that last forever. IMO, constructing a magazine is just grasping at straws that are a bit harder to find and further out of reach. Buy a quality product to being with and when/if you have issues with it return it to the manufacture but know that there are no definitive answers of which magazine is best nor any guarantee that if you by magazine brand “X” you’ll have a trouble free gun. These things require maintenance, just like ones car or house, and while one should certainly have the reasonable expectation that if a quality product is used issues will be kept to a minimum we all have to bare in mind that things can and will break. Just my $0.02...  |
Thanks Jason, that info is enlighting and wow after reading that, I don't shoot nearly enough!  My main problem is that these mag are less than 2 months old and have had less than 800 round run through them as a total. In the past I have used the Wilson's and they never preformed like this. I'm really dissapointed, as they are not that cheap! |
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I disagree with Jason Burton. Based on collectively seeing many, many thousands of rounds downrange not just in our own pistols but in issue guns and those we see come through our classes, along with discussions with several well known, very knowledgeable gunsmiths, Hilton, Ben and I have determined that while SOME 47Ds seem to last longer than others, they require a maintenance cycle that is intensive. This is not based on observing two, ten, or even a hundred magazines over a service cycle, but at least several hundred if not over a thousand (between the three of us) Wilson magazines. While it is true that NOTHING is 100%, you can maximize your chance of success by setting up your magazines properly. The CMC/Tripp combination is the best setup for a long term, hard use magazine without the need to replace components. It is NOT grasping at straws, but is a configuration we have collectively tested extensively over a large sample of guns. It will not solve all your problems, will still need periodic maintenance (such as cleaning), and reduce your magazine capacity to the standard 7 round Browning design. However, you will have a strong spring that will last the lifetime of the gun, an outstanding steel reinforced follower, and a strong magazine body that will resist feed lip deformation. This is combo is not perfect, but it is the best we have at the moment. We are working on a turnkey solution for a hard use duty magazine that addresses other design issues as well. It is true that magazines require maintenance, but there is standard PM and then there are endemic problems with a magazine of particular manufacture. I am not picking on Wilson; they have a great CS program in place. The issue is that we see these same issues come up over and over again with this magazine, and have identified weaknesses in them. In Law Enforcement, we call this a CLUE. The bottom line is that your success rate will improve with this configuration. Take 50 47Ds and 50 CMC/Tripp Magazine setups, keep them loaded for the better part of a year, and shoot 5000 rds through each of them, and you will see the difference. Firearms Instructor Giles Stock has converted all his magazines to this setup and he agrees with our assessment. As with ANY life saving equipment, once you have set up the magazine, it needs to be tested before rotated into duty use. |
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I can see both sides (Jason, TimL). On the one hand, WC [47s] have and do work well for Jason, while TimL and Co. prefer their mag over WC after extensive testing. Is it true though that Tripp Research's Cobra is one of a few actually designed to hold 8 rounds, vice trying to get a 7 mag frame to hole one more? [edit typo] . |
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Yes, the Tripp Cobramag is designed to hold 8 rounds and has a longer body and innovative baseplate design to make room for a longer spring. In concept, it is a good idea. The problem with the Cobramag is that the feedlips are very inconsistent and each one looks different than the next. I have played with a couple that worked well for me, but of the ones I have seen, I have seen an inordinate amount of them have premature cracked or spread feedlips. Also, they are designed to sit higher in the magwell, which again, in concept, seems to be a good thing to aid in feeding/chambering. However, they sit SO high that the lips will crash into the extended ejectors of some pistols. Tim |
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I want to thank all for their input. I have sent an e-mail to Wilson and will follow that up with a phone call. The point that I'm trying to make, is that for mags that are only 2 months old, this "spring set" should have taken place this quickly. I have had Pro-mags, that even thought they were not that great of mags, they did not get a "spring set" this bad or this quickly. I guess I will have to up grade them to the Tripp kits. I still should not have had to do this to new mags. 
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The reason i said replace the slide stop is because springfield is machined a bit different. I have dealt with this issue with many springfield 1911s. Wilson will send you replacement springs but there is no reason to go through all of that when a new (high quality) slide stop will allow your 1911 to function properly with all types of magazines. |
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Well, after reading what is a very interesting post I have a few comments. As my first post not many will have any reason to take what I have to say seriously but I have also shot a few rounds of ball in my day and have worked and carried a 1911 for longer than most people here claim to be a pistolsmith. Anyway, a well built gun, suitable for carry, especially in a specific platform like the 1911 should run most available quality magazines. It should certainly, if the builder and the user understands what they want from the gun, shoot Wilson and CMC's. You don't build the magazine to run the gun. You build the gun to run the magazine. If you are REALLY servicing a large number of shooters, either in the military or a large LE organization, nobody and I mean nobody is going to buy mag bodies from one supplier, springs from another, and followers from someone else. You are going to place a large order maybe several hundred to issue, and the guns if spec'd properly and maintained will run a huge majority of these mags. It has been said that the 1911 is high maintenance. That is simply not true. A properly set up gun with good mags will run for thousands of rounds. Snake oil salesman used to create a use for their magic potion just to give someone a reason to buy it. The gun is fairly simple. It feeds, fires, extracts, and ejects. If you truly understand each function of the machine it is not hard to get it to do so. In fact it has happened for 95 years in the military. It is like the argument over gun finishes. Everyone is trying to find out the "ultimate" no rust, no wear finish, but at the same time give the gun a seriously inflated shelf life. If the shelf life was really that short why not a finish that could be reapplied easily and quickly, like black oxide? If you create panic people will respond, and since you are standing there they will ask you what to do, and more than likely repsond appropriately. Like "Wilson mags don't work" the quick response it "then what does?" Desired response "well let me tell you, ours do" In the same vein who, with peoples lives and livilihood on the line endorse a gun to police officers and members of the finest military in the world a gun that is said to be "good to go" out of the box. These guns are built quickly and the only way that company makes money is guns leaving the facility. You can't tell someone to bet their life on a product without first knowing it works. At least nobody that really cared about how the end result figured out. In facy most large federal agencies do not have anyone in a local field office who are actually allowed to work on, maintain, or "smith" an agency gun. Anyone who tries to tell you differently is like trying to sell themselves and thier wares. Lot to post and you certainly don have to agree but I have been reading here a long time and thought it needed to be said. |
I'm with MT_Pockets, replace the slide stop with an Ed Brown Hardcore. I'll bet those mags work fine after that.  Magazines wear out, simple fact of life. Hell I've got some Randall and Pachmyer mags from 20 years ago that I still use for range use while many of thier bretheran have hit the trash can. Nothing lasts forever. The more you shoot the more maintenance is required. Also note that nothing man made will ever be perfect %100 of the time, that's why companies have warranties 
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| Dont laugh but I bought 20 Colt 7 rounders at a .milsurp store about 10-12 years or so ago. I dont know if theyre really from the military but they were wrapped in oily paper and a plastic bag, w/ Colt Logo not real sure of the origin??? They work great and only two have become suspect in the years Ive been using them. From my experience I believe in the 7rd metal follower mags. 8rds have always had a bad rep. I do though wonder has anyone got any experience with the Ed Brown 7 round mags? I was thinking of getting 4 or 5 next time I place an order. |
Not discrediting your emperical research but I leave my 47D's loaded everyday. Always have 2 and when I go to the range, I unload those 2 and join them with the other 3 47D's and shoot. I've logged over 10,300 rounds since January with my Kimbers and 3 of those months I was at a school and could not shoot. Those magazines have treated me really well and I forsee no problems. But if I do, I'll just replace them like I do recoil springs. I'm sure the CMC upgrade will work great also, but anything with moving parts WILL eventually wear out or break. Also, Wolff makes ALL of Wilson's springs. Recoil, Mainspring, Magazine, etc.... Just my opinion, I'm happy with my 47D's Randy |