Cleaning 1911 magazines

[Grouchy Spike]

How do you clean your 1911 magazines?  Well, maybe I should ask "Do you clean your 1911 magazines?"

 

Assuming that you do clean your 1911 magazines, do you remove and clean the followers and springs, brush the inside of the tube?  Or do you push the follower down with a magazine brush and swab the tube?

 

The witness holes in Tripp magazines are staggered so it's difficult to insert a punch into the magazine to hold down a compressed magazine spring.  If you have Tripp magazines do you remove the followers to clean the tube? 

 

If you have 1911 magazines that you've equipped with Tripp followers, do you remove the followers to clean the tube?

 

When do you clean your 1911 magazines?  After each match? 

 

[Happy Jack]

I don't clean magazines other than a cursory wipe off the outside. I've used Tripps for years with no problems. Others will feel differently.

 

I know Garrison Joe cleans Tripps. He will probably chime in.

[Grouchy Spike]

HJ, you must be using a very clean burning powder.  Which one?  WST?

[Boggus Deal]

I turn mine upside down in the sonic cleaner about once a year. Then give them a spritz of Hornady  One Shot.

[DUSTY BODDAMS]

BD, plus 1 for the sonic cleaner.

[Last Chance]

Never cleaned a Tripp mag in 6 years. Work flawless.

[Goatneck]

I blow my Tripps out with 160# of air pressure no problems in a number of years

 

Goatneck

[Garrison Joe]

The witness holes in Tripp magazines are staggered so it's difficult to insert a punch into the magazine to hold down a compressed magazine spring.  If you have Tripp magazines do you remove the followers to clean the tube?

 

 

Like most 1911 mag bodies, the largest gap between the lips is at the front of the Tripp mag body.  The Tripp follower is a tight enough fit, and has a uniquely deep skirt at the front end of the follower that prevents a straight out the front removal approach. That deep skirt is what prevents a Tripp follower from nose-diving the front end down into the mag body on the last round. The skirt runs all the way around the underside of the follower (just not deep anywhere but under the front end) - so you can't twist the follower over 90 degrees, either.  The only way it comes out is "curled out" through that wide gap of the lips. That's the strategy.

 

Here's the tactics.

 

Don't use a punch to capture the mag spring.  Use a suitable size allen wrench - I usually grab a 1/8" short arm allen wrench.  The allen wrench gives you a long leg to hold against the mag body so the short arm doesn't move and let go of the spring. 

 

Depress the follower with a blunt rod to get the follower down to about hole 5.  The unsharpened end of a flat carpenter's pencil chucked in a bench vise works real well and won't gouge the plastic of the follower. Push mag over the pencil, depressing follower with pressure a little forward of the center of follower.  Insert allen wrench through the 7 hole, just above the last spring loop that is not "up in the hollow base" of the Tripp follower.  Release pressure on depressor rod, and follower will be loose in the mag body because you caught the spring with the short arm of allen wrench. 

 

Slide follower up to the lips, then press down on the back end of the follower (the square end) so the follower rotates it's front up and exposes the bottom edge of the skirt.  Needle nose pliers used carefully allow you to get one jaw of pliers into that hollow skirt, and you can first pull the skirt out the front of the lips, and then rotate the back end of follower up through the front of the lips. Pull the allen wrench and catch the spring.

 

Reassembly, as they often say, is the reverse.  Well, not quite.  I find it easier to just drop the spring in the body, fit the follower onto the top end of spring so the spring fits into skirt of follower.  Compress the spring with just your fingers pressing down, start back end of follower through the wide part of lips, then rotate the front of follower through the lips and let it snap up once the skirt is inside the mag body. 

 

But....

I usually just wipe off the follower unless I have really filled the mag full of dirt.    ;)

 

Good luck, GJ

[Grouchy Spike]

Thanks for all of the input and advice!

[Happy Jack]

Grouchy,  Yes WST for decades. The other powder that burns clean and gives remakably low SD's is VV 320.