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Sir:
Over the years I, like all shooters, have heard theories on magazine springs and how to treat them. A few years back I took a tour of the Sandia National Laboratories and I spoke with a metallurgist who was also a shooter and he had some noteworthy insight on the issue. As he said, “if the spring was made of the right materials and heat treated properly, leaving it loaded will not cause the spring to weaken.” Leaving a spring compressed will not weaken it, it is compressing and relieving the spring a lot that causes them to weaken through use. He added that any failings are usually due to poor materials or bad heat treating.

One more word of warning is that you should never stretch magazine springs, this is at best a short term fix. They will weaken again, even faster than before. Replace them when they go bad, don’t stretch them out in hopes they will still give good service.  – Jake at The Armory

Mr. Rawles;

What do you think of the double-barrel coach gun as a weapon for less-frequent shooters? I’m thinking this might be a good choice to give to the older lady next door, or the wife who doesn’t shoot as a hobby. It’s easy to use (few controls), intimidating, and has manageable recoil, when used with the right buckshot loads and possibly a quality recoil pad. – John in California

JWR Replies:  Coach Guns (a.k.a. side-by-side double-barreled shotguns or “luparas“) are an antiquated design, but they do fill a couple of useful roles in a retreat firearms battery. Their greatest attributes are their extreme shooting longevity (there are some British side-by-side shotguns have been documented to have fired literally millions of shotgun shells), and their ability to digest loads that would cause most repeating shotguns to “hang up.”  Ancient ammo, cruddy ammo, overloads, you name it, and they will shoot it.  Secondarily, like their single-shot cousins, double barrels have far greater versatility than repeaters, because they can accept cartridge adapters and barrel inserts, such as the famous “Savage .410-ers”  and the more recently produced “Chamber Mates.” The most commonly found side-by sides–such as those used in Cowboy Action Shooting have exposed hammers, which must be manually cocked, and simple extractors rather than ejectors. The exposed hammer guns look quaint, but they are considerably slower to operate than internal hammer models with ejectors such as as the discontinued Browning B-SS (These thankfully are still widely available on the secondary market.) I strongly recommend that you look for an internal hammer model, particularly if you plan to use your coach gun for self-defense. Your primary shotgun should probably be a pump or a semi-auto. You might consider getting a coach gun as a secondary gun for self defense and for taking game. In my experience, 23-inch barrels are a good compromise between compactness and muzzle velocity/patterning.  I’d only opt for 18 or 20 inch barrels if you only want a self defense shotgun. Notably, in locales that have restrictive gun laws (such as England) , where getting permits can be difficult, a coach gun might be a viable option. (Since they are among the most likely to get permit approval.) As for the suggestion that you hand one to “the older lady next door“, I don’t think that is realistic unless you give granny a light recoil 20 gauge model with a thick recoil pad (such as a Pachmayr Decelerator or their new Ultra Soft) and a lot of training.

JWR –
Recently had a few realizations about magazines (the weakest link in any semi-auto firearm):

Of course, the 10 round G21 magazines are only loaded to 9 rounds; 13 round magazines to 12 rounds.; M14 20 round magazines loaded to 18 rounds. When I had a mouse gun, 28 rounds in a 30 round magazine. As I have been reading entries about sidearms, the capacities are always given for the magazines with no mention of downloading them for better reliability and newbies might not know the accepted rules on this topic. – D.B.

JWR Replies: If heard from various “authorities” on the subject (in firearms trade publications) that magazine springs cannot “take a set.”  But from personal experience, I know that this can and does happen.  YMMV, but my personal approach is to keep only 20% of my magazines fully loaded at any given time, but I rotate them once every four months.  I unload them in the course of target practice. Thus, this also serves two extra purposes: 1.) It confirms that each and every magazine is functionally tested with live ammo, and 2.) It serves as an inducement to log regular “trigger time” out at the Back 40 at the Rawles Ranch. Practice, practice, practice…