| If you take a magazine* apart you will see that it is | | | | spring and follower. Now clean the parts and the |
| a real simple item. You can see the parts are few. | | | | inside of the magazine with a brush and gun solvent |
| Inside the tube of either metal or plastic, you have a | | | | to remove dirt, dust and fouling from magazine. |
| follower at the top resting on a spring. The job of | | | | Reassemble the magazine by reversing the |
| the follower is to follow the ammunition up the tube | | | | procedure used to take it apart. If you feel you must |
| to ensure that it lies at the proper angle to feed into | | | | use lube, use a dry lube. |
| the firearm when its turn comes. Below the spring | | | | I try to rotate my magazines after cleaning to let |
| you have a floor plate and a keeper that closes the | | | | the springs rest. Metal springs take a set over time if |
| magazine at the bottom. The floor plate gives the | | | | they are exposed to load stress. I rotate the |
| spring a flat, secure footing so that it does not | | | | magazines on a specific schedule to relieve this |
| wallow in the magazine tube. The keeper keeps all | | | | stress. |
| the parts of the magazine in the tube. | | | | I keep three magazines for range use. These |
| If you live and practice in a dusty or high humidity | | | | magazines are dropped, reloaded, slammed into the |
| area, you should disassemble the magazines | | | | gun and changed often during drills. I load these prior |
| periodically to get the gunk out. Remember the dirt | | | | to the range with ammunition for the range. |
| at the range you wiped off the outside of the | | | | I usually carry two spare magazines and I have one |
| magazine when you dropped it while practicing a | | | | in my firearm. These are the cleanest, freshest |
| tactical reload? How much of it got inside? | | | | magazines that I own. I load them with specific |
| How do you disassemble and clean the magazine? | | | | ammunition suited to the hunt or for personal |
| This is usually accomplished by slowly removing the | | | | protection. |
| floor plate from the bottom. Be careful because the | | | | My rotation is not my invention. I got it from a friend |
| spring is under a little tension. Remove the floor plate, | | | | and from books on tactics. |