praetorian97 Posted April 28, 2014 Share Posted April 28, 2014 I have 5 mags pretty much all doing the same thing. K40 Grams Followers that have seen 2000-3000 rounds. Grams Springs 500 rounds. Henning H141 Base Pads. Load to 19 rounds. Flick out round 19 and 18. 17 is not rising to the top without shaking it. Cleaned the inside of the bodies and even tried dry lube. Thoughts? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
e-mishka Posted April 28, 2014 Share Posted April 28, 2014 Sand follower around the edges a bit, may help Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mlussoro Posted April 28, 2014 Share Posted April 28, 2014 I'll fix for ya come over ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CHA-LEE Posted April 28, 2014 Share Posted April 28, 2014 When the grams followers get worn out they have excessive friction inside the magazine and it causes a slow registration of the next round. I use silicone spray to lube up the insides of my magazine tubes and followers to minimize the friction between the follower and the inside of the magazine body. Or you can replace the followers with new ones frequently and not use lube. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kyle7735 Posted April 28, 2014 Share Posted April 28, 2014 All 5 mags doing the same thing? Perhaps its what you are putting In the mags? OAL and Bullet Profile? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
praetorian97 Posted April 28, 2014 Author Share Posted April 28, 2014 Same load I've been running close to 10k rounds now. Mic out the same. Really think its the followers catching with friction. Going to try sanding in addition to some dry lube. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CHA-LEE Posted April 28, 2014 Share Posted April 28, 2014 I have found that on the Grams followers, once the sharp edges on the sides of the follower get rounded off they start having too much friction on the inside of the magazine and it causes a lazy or slow registration of the next round. You can lube the inside of the magazine and follower with a silicone spray or dry lube, but that only works for so long before the rounded corners get bad enough that even lube does not eliminate the issue. I switched from using Grams followers over the to Taran Tactical SVI flowers and they seem to last a lot longer than the Grams followers. But eventually they all get worn out and need replaced. I usually replace all of my followers proactively once a year and I normally use 10 magazines for shooting matches. If I drop a magazine in the dirt during a stage run, I decommission the magazine until I get back home so I can clean it, inspect it then lube it back up with silicone spray. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
praetorian97 Posted April 28, 2014 Author Share Posted April 28, 2014 These Cha-Lee? http://tarantacticalinnovations.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=54_57&products_id=150 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
praetorian97 Posted April 28, 2014 Author Share Posted April 28, 2014 I decommission the magazine until I get back home so I can clean it, inspect it then lube it back up with silicone spray. I think thats a solid plan. I may need to do that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CHA-LEE Posted April 28, 2014 Share Posted April 28, 2014 These Cha-Lee? http://tarantacticalinnovations.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=54_57&products_id=150 That follower is the correct profile, but its taller than the ones I use. I order my followers from Power Factor Shooting and listed a link to it below. I request the "Short" version of this follower. http://www.powerfactorshooting.com/Bolen_follower_for_STI_SVI_SPS_magazine_tubes_p/bolen-follower.htm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maks_H Posted April 29, 2014 Share Posted April 29, 2014 What about magazine springs? Do you use also Bolen? How many coils? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CHA-LEE Posted April 29, 2014 Share Posted April 29, 2014 I prefer to use the Grams 11 coil spring because you can usually order them from many different places for reasonable prices. But the Taran/Bolen 11 coil spring will work fine as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
praetorian97 Posted April 29, 2014 Author Share Posted April 29, 2014 Im going to also try a U Die out to get more uniformity out of my reload walls. The straight wall of the inner K40 mag bodies have more surface for friction. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
praetorian97 Posted May 1, 2014 Author Share Posted May 1, 2014 After Action Report.......... Well I broke the cardinal rule of troubleshooting and tried a bunch of stuff at once so now I don't know exactly what fixed it. But hey Im stoked its fixed. I have Area1 coming up so I was in a mad dash for a solution. I spoke with Grams from Grams Engineering, Nealio, and you folks here. What I believe I was experiencing was excessive friction on the Bullet/followers hitting the side walls of the mag well. I haven't really had this issue in 10K rounds so Im assuming this issue surfaced for me due to how hard I am on my mags and the life of the mag body. I went to the Lee U Die to get a more uniform side wall, Simple Green cleaned my mag bodies, and then followed it up with a cleaning with CLP. CLP will leave a lubrication layer as well as help knock down additional dirt. Went to the range and the spring tension actually felt better manually tossing rounds out of the mag. The gun has has close to a 1000 rounds through it since last cleaning so this was a true test of will it run. For giggles I loaded back to 1.14 when I was loading to 1.13 before. Prior to this I tried Dry Lube, New springs, and a little sanding on the follower. The followers were in pretty great shape so I didn't think that was the issue after some comparison to new ones. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CHA-LEE Posted May 1, 2014 Share Posted May 1, 2014 Good job on getting it figured out!!! Have fun and be safe Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
praetorian97 Posted May 6, 2014 Author Share Posted May 6, 2014 500 rounds and still going strong! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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