In our post earlier today on gift ideas for your favorite gun-owning father, Sam Hoober suggested buying pop some quality magazines. He correctly pointed out that a semi-automatic handgun’s most common failure point is the magazines you’re using to run it.
Don’t believe him? Sam’s suggestion prompted frequent TTAG commenter Dyspeptic Gunsmith to chime in to agree with his assessment. If your semi-automatic firearm is having reliability issues, the first thing to check is your detachable magazines.
As DG put it . . .
All semi-autos fed with detachable magazines can have magazine issues. All of them.
You would not believe how many FTF issues I diagnose as being a problem with a detachable magazine – 1911’s, AR’s, M1A’s, M1 Carbine (especially the Carbine) etc., etc. And you would not believe how much push-back I get from some gun owners on the issue of it being the magazine.
“But I just bought it!” or “It’s never been a problem before!” or “I don’t need to spend those big dollars on those fancy-pants magazines!” and on and on.
Oh, and my favorite: “I’ve been using those magazines just fine for the last 40 years!”
Yea, that’s my favorite. Any spring replacement? No. Any cleaning? “You don’t have to clean magazines!”
Magpul PMAG (top), OK Industries Surefeed magazine (bottom) (Image: Dan Z for TTAG
If I were an unscrupulous SOB, I could invent some cock-n-bull story that they have an issue with their barrel, chamber or action, and that I need to do lots of work to their gun to make it feed. I could be making hundreds of dollars per magazine-issue case that comes through the door.
Instead, I get a bunch of bitching and complaining from people that a) their magazines are just fine, and b) I don’t know what I’m talking about because it must be something more complicated (and expensive to them).
Ever wonder why gunsmiths become acerbic? Listen to the magazine arguments with gun owners and wonder no longer.
Quality magazines are a sure-fire winning gift. Really. You might even be giving me an indirect gift if you give someone a high-quality magazine, and after they’ve used your gift, they realize that there’s a reason to use quality magazines.
Words to live by. Save yourself time, aggravation, and money by buying quality magazines and maintaining the ones you already own. You gunsmith will thank you for it.
