Many of you may already be aware of it, but S&W only within the last few years discontinued manufacture of all magazines for their third generation pistols, the one I have, the 1006 (10mm) included.
Now, I'm not exactly up the creek needing magazines (I have five bought when they were still making them), but I'd like five more because, well, just because.
Short of paying the wildly inflated prices that new or even used magazines are currently going for -- regularly up beyond $100 each at the moment and steadily climbing -- the only solution to getting magazines anywhere near the ~$35 price point that they once sold for is to buy the five required parts (tube, floorplate catch, floorplate, follower, spring) and build my own.
I was able to locate four of the original factory parts, but couldn't find the factory springs anywhere, instead forced to go to Wolff, who still makes springs for these magazines, but only with either +5% or +10% spring tension rather than at the stock spring tension.
I bought the +5%, figuring it would be the most likely to work, then assembled (with great difficulty because the floorplate catch had to be sanded down on the edges to fit for some reason) a magazine.
I was a bit suspicious because of how difficult it was to get the floorplate finally slid in place because the spring tension was so much greater than needed.
Wanting to see how this would go, I went ahead and tried to load the nine rounds that these magazines are designed to hold, but ony the first eight went in without a problem, and then only with noticeably greater effort required than with the standard spring equipped magazines.
It took so much effort to insert the ninth round that I was worried that it would damage the magazine itself, but it's a testament to the durability of these magazines that that didn't happen.
However, that ninth round is under so much tension that I find it highly dubious that it will be as reliable as what I've come to expect (100% reliability over thousands of rounds fired) in my 26 years of experience with this gun/magazine combination.
What I hoping someone can answer is:
1) Is there a source out there of factory springs for these magazines still out there?
2) If factory springs really are a lost cause, is it possible and advisable to cut one loop off the Wolff spring to bring its tension back down to normal levels, and if so, how difficult is it to reduce tension by doing that?
Now, I'm not exactly up the creek needing magazines (I have five bought when they were still making them), but I'd like five more because, well, just because.
Short of paying the wildly inflated prices that new or even used magazines are currently going for -- regularly up beyond $100 each at the moment and steadily climbing -- the only solution to getting magazines anywhere near the ~$35 price point that they once sold for is to buy the five required parts (tube, floorplate catch, floorplate, follower, spring) and build my own.
I was able to locate four of the original factory parts, but couldn't find the factory springs anywhere, instead forced to go to Wolff, who still makes springs for these magazines, but only with either +5% or +10% spring tension rather than at the stock spring tension.
I bought the +5%, figuring it would be the most likely to work, then assembled (with great difficulty because the floorplate catch had to be sanded down on the edges to fit for some reason) a magazine.
I was a bit suspicious because of how difficult it was to get the floorplate finally slid in place because the spring tension was so much greater than needed.
Wanting to see how this would go, I went ahead and tried to load the nine rounds that these magazines are designed to hold, but ony the first eight went in without a problem, and then only with noticeably greater effort required than with the standard spring equipped magazines.
It took so much effort to insert the ninth round that I was worried that it would damage the magazine itself, but it's a testament to the durability of these magazines that that didn't happen.
However, that ninth round is under so much tension that I find it highly dubious that it will be as reliable as what I've come to expect (100% reliability over thousands of rounds fired) in my 26 years of experience with this gun/magazine combination.
What I hoping someone can answer is:
1) Is there a source out there of factory springs for these magazines still out there?
2) If factory springs really are a lost cause, is it possible and advisable to cut one loop off the Wolff spring to bring its tension back down to normal levels, and if so, how difficult is it to reduce tension by doing that?
