Posted: 4/25/2009 10:28:02 AM EDT
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Hello,
I've found that the slide stop failures on my Desert Eagle .50AE seem to be stemming from the factory magazine spring. This is a rather long post, but if you don't feel like reading the entire post, my question is: what's the purpose of the 'tab' sticking out on the magazine spring? The rest of this post describes the background information of how this question came to be. –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– When my brand new Desert Eagle .50AE came in, I started noticing immediately that the factory magazines did not always catch the slide stop. I took the magazines apart and reinstalled the mag springs with the 'tab' of the spring inside the follower both above and below the small spring inside used to activate the slide stop (Figures 1 and 2 below). http://www.lagginworld.com/de50mag.gif Figure 1. The tab of the spring is inserted into the follower above the slide stop button spring, and both are inserted into the magazine together. Figure 2. The tab of the spring is inserted after the follower is fully inserted into the mag. The tab of the spring rests in the slot on the bottom of the follower. This seems to be the prescribed method per the operator's manual. Figure 3. The tab of the spring is cut off, and all of the tension is focused on point A. In both Figures 1 and 2, I've found that the slide either fails to reliably catch on an empty magazine, or sometimes the follower would become stuck inside the magazine when inserting only 1-2 rounds. (More rounds can be added into the magazine. However, after the 1-2 rounds are put into the magazine and then removed, the follower would just sit inside the magazine and I'd have to slap the mag in order to pop it back up.) I've even tried magazine springs out of ProMag DE .50 magazines, but found that these springs are weaker than factory and almost always guarantees a jam after the first shot. Then I ordered 4 new factory springs. When they are brand new, they are very stiff and perform reliably in either Figure 1 or Figure 2 configuration. Upon comparing the old spring and the new spring, it appeared that the new spring was longer and therefore should rightly be more reliable. After installing the new spring and letting it sit inside a loaded mag overnight, the new spring began to compress. It appeared that these springs compress themselves into a shorter length and lose stiffness over time, even when sitting inside a magazine without being shot. (My second of three magazines received a new spring as well and was never loaded, but this spring also compressed.) Over time, these 'new' springs will most likely have the same length as the 'old' springs I had that fail to catch the slide. (Keep in mind, I'm uncertain if this is normal behavior for all magazine springs, since the Desert Eagle is really the first gun I've encountered these reliability issues with and the only one I've been investigating.) After this was figured out, I then thought: perhaps this 'tab' on the spring is doing a poor job of spreading the tension on the follower, thereby causing all the problems I've been having. I proceeded to cut the tab off of one of my old, 'unreliable' springs and inserted it into the magazine (as shown in Figure 3). All of a sudden, the slide stop started catching reliably every time, and the tension in the spring when loading rounds appeared to be the same with or without the tab. The follower also no longer becomes stuck inside the magazine after loading 1-2 rounds. Now, I haven't had any issues with these magazines with 'tab-less' magazine springs... which begs the question: what's the purpose of the 'tab' sticking out on the magazine spring? Will removing this tab somehow cause other issues not worth having a reliable slide catch for? Or am I doing something completely wrong and stupid here? My apologies for writing such an incredibly long post, but I appreciate any feedback or information anyone might have regarding this situation. EDIT: I've found that using ProMag followers with the tab-less factory springs in the factory mags work even better. |