boo radley Posted April 1, 2008 Share Posted April 1, 2008 Picked up an Eagle 5.0 9mm and three new 126mm 9mm STI magazines. One, that came with gun, had a spacer - it fell out loose on the floor when I was adding a basepad. For the life of me, I can't get it back in the magazine and have it work. It just fits inside the back of the magazine, right? What happens is, if the magazine is unloaded, the follower gets jammed by the spacer slightly above the lips of mag, and can't move. How is there room at the top of the mag for both the spacer and the follower? Also, should this plastic spacer be glued or somehow secured to the inside of the mag? Thx Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HSMITH Posted April 1, 2008 Share Posted April 1, 2008 Plastic spacers suck, get a metal spacer in it. Joey Hardy is close to you I think and does a great job on 9mm spacer mags if you want to send it out and have it fixed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aircooled6racer Posted April 1, 2008 Share Posted April 1, 2008 Hello: Try leaving the spacer out. Your mag may work without it. If the mag is right you don't need the spacer even with 9mm. You may want to change to the 38 length follower in the future. I don't like the spacers as well unless they are spot welded in place. Hope this helps. Thanks, Eric Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boo radley Posted April 1, 2008 Author Share Posted April 1, 2008 Thx, Eric and Howard. I haven't even shot this gun yet, so yeah -- first test will be trying without the spacer. I only have 1 spacer for 3 mags, regardless...From searching the forum, sounds like the other options are adding metal spacers, sending mags off to be tuned, or buying SV mags which are $100 each, on the website. While I'm on the subject, some additional questions -- perhaps not all answerable. 1) Why doesn't STI make 9mm specific tubes and magazines? 2) Why do I want the .38 super follower? If they work that much better, why doesn't STI use this follower? 3) A full 126mm mag doesn't seem to have much spring tension. I have some left-over STI springs from .40S&W mags. Would these work, or should I use them? 4) I have some Dawson internation (wedge) pads. I've discovered filing the tabs on the mags so they just *barely* go on, leads to Extreme Frustation, when the don't come off. OTOH, there doesn't seem to be anything to retain the pad, unlike the +1 pads, besides slip-fit. Do y'all file until the pads slip off and on easily, and take a chance that they won't come loose? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TeamGE Posted April 1, 2008 Share Posted April 1, 2008 boo radly, Your question: "Why doesn't STI make 9mm specific tubes and magazines?" is one that has been asked for years, but never seems to get answered correctly. STI's answer is the spacer plate, and is the most economical way of making the "38super" mag work for 9x19. I recommend you glue the spacer in place (RTV silicon/bathroom caulking is one glue that works good), and cut the spacer plate as long as the tube when using a wedge type pad. Plastic spacer work OK, but will wear out at the top faster then you would like. From you description of problems, it sounds like you are not using a "shortened follower" made to fit into to the tube with a spacer plate. The standard 38 follower is too long (front to back) and will wedge tight, causing a lot of drag, and not traveling all the way to the top. It will give you the sense of no spring pressure. Trim your follower off the back the amount that the spacer plate takes up in the tube. The springs you are using should not wedge inside the tube on any side. Or you could try my FKS9-11 Follower Kit, with the spring coil count cut to 9 or 10 coils for the IPSC length mag. It is designed for the spacer plate issues. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phudd Posted April 2, 2008 Share Posted April 2, 2008 How many stainless spacers did you want? It'll be a couple weeks, but I'll hook you up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kingman Posted April 2, 2008 Share Posted April 2, 2008 Spacers do wonders. SVI mags do more. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scirocco38s Posted April 2, 2008 Share Posted April 2, 2008 Thx, Eric and Howard. I haven't even shot this gun yet, so yeah -- first test will be trying without the spacer. I only have 1 spacer for 3 mags, regardless...From searching the forum, sounds like the other options are adding metal spacers, sending mags off to be tuned, or buying SV mags which are $100 each, on the website. While I'm on the subject, some additional questions -- perhaps not all answerable. 1) Why doesn't STI make 9mm specific tubes and magazines? 2) Why do I want the .38 super follower? If they work that much better, why doesn't STI use this follower? 3) A full 126mm mag doesn't seem to have much spring tension. I have some left-over STI springs from .40S&W mags. Would these work, or should I use them? 4) I have some Dawson internation (wedge) pads. I've discovered filing the tabs on the mags so they just *barely* go on, leads to Extreme Frustation, when the don't come off. OTOH, there doesn't seem to be anything to retain the pad, unlike the +1 pads, besides slip-fit. Do y'all file until the pads slip off and on easily, and take a chance that they won't come loose? Boo, you should have talked to me as I have the mags situation solution from gramms. I will bring one to the match if you remind me friday night. I have the major 9 open gun and 5 tuned gramms mags. You can then see the why for's and how too's of the 9mm sti. I also am building a 9mm limited gun to go with my 38s limited gun. You never know when you need to cover your bases. You buying up all them guns before Hillary gets in office? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nhglyn Posted April 2, 2008 Share Posted April 2, 2008 Boo, Solution to some of these problems, think............. OPEN Sorry Steve, couldn't resist! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boo radley Posted April 2, 2008 Author Share Posted April 2, 2008 Boo, you should have talked to me as I have the mags situation solution from gramms. I will bring one to the match if you remind me friday night. I have the major 9 open gun and 5 tuned gramms mags. You can then see the why for's and how too's of the 9mm sti. I also am building a 9mm limited gun to go with my 38s limited gun. You never know when you need to cover your bases. You buying up all them guns before Hillary gets in office? Well, no, not consciously. Just trying to replace my G17 and G35. Most expensive thing I ever did was shoot a Glock. <grin> Now I think I'm set for the next few years, as long as my eyes hold out. A set of special shooting glasses has the front sight nice and sharp now. Have the SV for Limited, and this STI Eagle for practice, Limited minor, steel and IDPAish things. Same grips, and controls, and almost the same sights. I don't want to shoot lead or exposed base bullets, and JHP is getting crazy expensive in .40.... This is starting to make a little more sense to me. The mag that came with the gun had an insert and a follower trimmed front-and-back. But not properly trimmed -- Beven was right. It's sticky, and either pops up too far (very bad), or doesn't pop up and engage the slide-stop when empty. The other two mags, which are marked .38 super on the package, don't have any spacers, and there wouldn't be room for the followers unless I trimmed them. OTOH, in a short test (Tues. night match), they seemed to run just fine....Maybe they'll work fine as is? I still am going to get a couple of the Grams kits and some more tubes, regardless. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boo radley Posted April 23, 2008 Author Share Posted April 23, 2008 OK -- jump ahead a couple weeks. Eagle 5.0 9mm. I'm beginning to run into problems. Problem 1: Stock STI 126mm magazine tubes with Dawson wedge basepads. With the factory magazine springs and 38 super followers, I could not get the slide to reliably lock back. To correct this issue, I replaced the guts with some left-over 140mm springs and followers, and slightly opened the magazine lips. However, I'm encountering the occasional double-feed, which really sucks. Could this be from running without a spacer? Did I open the magazine lips too wide, and -- if so -- is it really this tricky to get consistent slide-lock?? Problem 2: Stock STI 126mm magazine tube. Glued-in a metal spacer, and put in a brand-new Grams 11-coil 9mm spring kit. When I rack the slide, on a loaded magazine, even with just 1 round in it, the magazine goes flying out the bottom, and nothing chambers. If I rack the slide with no rounds in the magazine, the slide locks open for sure, which is good. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HSMITH Posted April 23, 2008 Share Posted April 23, 2008 Boo, get your mags tuned, the frustration level from here just goes up. That will sort out all of your mag issues and you can get to the gun. I doubt the double feed is a mag issue. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aircooled6racer Posted April 23, 2008 Share Posted April 23, 2008 Hello: Try some SVI 38 regular(purple) followers. These are really well made and work without spacers etc. in my STI mags. Thanks, Eric Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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