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Magazine tube spring effects capacity?


Anjin-san

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I know this subject has been covered before regarding getting the full 7 round capacity out of an M4 - shell length yada yada is the usual advice.

I saw a comment somewhere that magazine spring can be a factor and the Wolff spring will help get you to 7 rounds in the tube better than stock or other aftermarket springs.  Any truth to this?

I recently put a DMW (Dave's Metal Works) 2 round extension on and can't get more than 6 rounds in.  I have tried several types of 2 3/4" shells with no luck.  I don't think its the DMW tube, it's fit and finish is excellent and customer service from DMW has been great.  Function of the gun has been 100% both before and after the DMW upgrade.

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You can gauge how close you are when trying to insert the 7th round. Feel or look to see how close that round is to seating. If half the shell is sticking out, chances are you cannot safely trim the spring short enough to permit that much more of the shell to compress. A quarter inch is doable. 
 

If you trim too much spring, you can end up with a situation where the spring isn’t strong enough to reliably eject shells onto the elevator. Particularly the last round in the magazine tube. The last round will have the weakest spring tension of all the rounds. 
 

My favorite spring is the Carriercomp spec Wolff spring. I don’t think I have ever had to trim one. Just know that some shells are longer than the 2 3/4 inch size standard. 

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wolff spring is wolff spring....CC provided wolff spring is probably just precut for the length of their mag tube. If you bought a fresh spring, it's meant to be cut. Spring should be should be about 12-18" past the magazine. Cut the excess. I'd start out on the higher end (18") of that and trial and error cut till you can get the number of rounds in your magazine properly. If you cut too low, you won't get the spring strength and run into feed issue.

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What I did: I bought a practice spring. Can’t remember where, or brand but it was cheap (like 18 bux?) and supposed to be for m4. Point here is, you can try and measure the spring left from the tube after the cuts... but that may not be accurate either sometimes. it’s like meat on the smoker, everyone says 6 hours... you do it 6 hours and you have jerky. 

what I would suggest is you cut it a few coils (like 3) at a time, and put back together and test. You will get the idea of how many coils at a time after the first couple.  Takes longer, but it worked.  Practice spring actually is now full time spring, and has worked great for about 600 rounds. Then slugs got to over a dollar. 
 

just an alternative.

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  • 1 month later...
1 hour ago, Gmcrigger2007 said:

Is the Wolff magazine spring shorter or longer than the factory magazine spring ? 

I just replaced my factory with a wolf and the wolf is about 7 inches longer. It does not affect the capacity either on mine. Still holds 7rds of 2.75 buck shot.

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It is the collective Length of the  UNFIRED "2-3/4" shotshells that determines the # shells that can be loaded in the magazine tube. The 2-3/4" standard is the chamber / breech aperture length that will accommodate expelling the  OPENED UP / fired shot shell length. IF you choose to cut your magazine spring, than study the shortest 2-3/4" cartridge you will use and trim your spring accordingly.

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Edited by benelliwerkes
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I added a DMW extension to my M4 and they sent a spring with i... I didn't install their spring and just out of curiosity; I loaded with the stock 5 round spring in place. It's been a while since I did this, but I think I barely got 7 rounds in with the stock spring... Is that possible ? Or maybe 6 -3".

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27 minutes ago, Diesel79 said:

Interesting. I have the Federal flite control low recoil LE stuff and I can only fit 6rds of this.  I can fit 7 slugs no problem.  

I'm not sure. Maybe the flight control is a bit longer than the standard. Like I said, mine will load the 00 and slugs in the 2.75 federal I have. Glad I bought a bunch of it since there is right many inconsistencies between shotshells.

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