What if they don't? Send them back or send them to a magazine tuner like Grams Engineering. In some cases you may find that the tubes are good but the internals are not so good (common in some high-capacity pistols), in which case you can order internal parts from Grams Engineering (gramsengineering. com) or Dawson Precision (daw sonprecision. com).

If you buy from reputable sources and don’t try home fixes, you can be sure any problems will be resolved quickly—just be sure to test any mags that were replaced or repaired.

I have four magazines I took to a previous World Shoot when I was competing in Modified Division. Typical "short" STI mags hold only 16 rounds. Once tuned, they reliably held and fed 17 rounds each. Of course, any extra work adds cost. The parts and tuning of the magazines cost me as much as the mags themselves did. But at the International level, an extra round per magazine can be very comforting.

Once you've assured yourself that you have all the dependable, working magazines you need or want, how do you keep them in tip-top shape? There are a few issues we should get out of the way first. The first one, a biggie, is that springs do not take a set in a loaded magazine. Magazines are simple: a coil spring in a tube, lifting a platform that pushes the cartridges. Kept loaded (and assuming it is a good magazine) that spring does not lose strength.

A widow of a gunnery sergeant once brought in some magazines to the gun shop where I worked. While I don't know how long before his death the gunny had loaded those magazines, I do know the widow hadn't touched them in the 17 years since his passing. All the magazines worked just fine.

If your spring is short due to use or age, do not stretch it. Springs are cheap. Buy a new one, install it and do not save the old spring.

The moral? If you buy good-quality magazines, yours will work as well no matter how long you leave them loaded. So don't sweat leaving magazines loaded.

Now that we've answered that question, there are a few things you must do to ensure your magazines won't fail you in a shooting session, a big match or, God forbid, a defensive situation.

Rule 1:
Keep oil away from them. The only thing oil can do for your magazines is attract dirt, grit, lint and other debris. Some people use oil to "keep the springs from rusting" or to "smooth up the follower." Look, springs are going to rust. They're steel; it's in their nature. Unless you work (and carry) in a chemical plant that is making acids, the springs aren't going to rust enough to be weakened. (And if the plant has that much acid leaking, you really should find another job before you rust, too.)

Lubing up the follower isn't going to make it do its job any better and will simply attract the grit and junk I mentioned before. That stuff will gum up the follower-to-tube fit and cause the very malfunction you were trying to avoid. I wince every time I see someone spraying oil into a magazine tube.