Magazine Stored Loaded

[Rick H.]

Where does the "goop" come into the story? The OP said nothing about "goop" being present. Could these mags have been loaded at the factory? Perhaps, but probably not. Or maybe it was a trial or experimental program/decision to see how it worked out. 68 years after the fact who knows what may or may not have been done at times. If BAR mags were shipped loaded then why not M1 carbine mags. Seems like a pretty good idea if the mags were going into a combat A.O. Sort of like killing two birds with one stone. They not only shipped the needed magazines but shipped the ammo for them as well.

[browningautorifle]

As I understand it both BAR and carbine mags were shipped loaded for a time. I also understand that the carbine mags at least were not all together a success this way. I'm hoping someone else has info of some sort one way or the other.

[sakorick]

There are several reasons I don't believe this theory and I base my rudimentary knowledge on the fact I held a Supply Officer secondary MOS and went to the Installation Management course at Ft Lee, VA.
1. Small arms ammunition is a class V supply item. In this regard, it comes under strict storage regulations and transportation security. All class V items were shipped in special sealed containers and in special areas of the ship for safety.
2. It would seem to be unlikely that of all the magazine manufactures any of them would have the approval to order small arms ammunition and be able to comply with storage security on a large scale.
3. Magazines are a class II item of supply. Class II are never mixed with class V until issued.
4. The magazines would have to been shipped to a Ammunition Depot, filled with shells and re-wrapped and marked as Class V, then shipped to the port for deployment to theater. At this point, critical assets (bombs, arty shells, etc.) were given priority and small arms ammunition never was a critical asset.....so it may have sat on the dock for days.
5. Once in theater, the Material Management Command would have had the authority to have the magazines filled and issued....buy why? By the time he devoted manpower to do this job, the ammo and magazines would already be a unit level ready for issue.
6. The manpower, complexity and delays in shipment would have in my view been prohibitive.
7. Finally, when issued to the soldier, he would reload all the shells anyway as no soldier would risk his life on a little old lady in tennis shoes packing his magazines.

Just my $.02, regards, Rick.

[Patrick Chadwick]

Seems like a pretty good idea if the mags were going into a combat A.O.

It has been a commonplace of engineering knowhow for a couple of hundred years that a spring that is held for a long time under full load will tend to lose its tension and become "set". This is not a recent discovery.

So a delivery of preloaded mags would ONLY be a good logistical idea IF the magazines were expected to be used very quickly (max. weeks, not months) - i.e if they were being delivered into a combat area. If they went into storage, one would expect more and more loading/cycling problems as the springs aged under full load. I would therefore expect any supposedly factory-preloaded mags to be from a wartime period. IMOH, anything outside a wartime period would be implausible.

[Patrick Chadwick]

Finally, when issued to the soldier, he would reload all the shells anyway as no soldier would risk his life on a little old lady in tennis shoes packing his magazines.

IMOH, an unfortunate formulation in an otherwise excellent post. I cannot speak for the USA, but have read that the involvement of women in arms production in WW1 and after in Britain showed that women were, statistically speaking, more reliable than men in repetitive, "fiddly" jobs requiring manual dexterity. Whether the ladies were little, old, and wore tennis shoes or not.

And many soldiers placed their lives in the hands of the women who had packed their parachutes - a matter somewhat more critical than the (at present contentious) preloaded magazines, which as you rightly suggest, any soldier would rather check for himself. Even if the mags had been packed by men who were tall, young, and wore boots.

Apart from that, the safety/logistical argument against preloaded mags is compelling.

[USGI]

Where does the "goop" come into the story? The OP said nothing about "goop" being present.

Several members here frequent other carbine forums that have similar threads - I'm thinking the "goop" comments refer to something read on another forum. I doubt that anyone in our military was ever authorized to apply "goop" to loaded mags. Here's a link to one similar thread:
http://forums.thecmp.org/showthread.php?t=101741

[sakorick]

IMOH, an unfortunate formulation in an otherwise excellent post. I cannot speak for the USA, but have read that the involvement of women in arms production in WW1 and after in Britain showed that women were, statistically speaking, more reliable than men in repetitive, "fiddly" jobs requiring manual dexterity. Whether the ladies were little, old, and wore tennis shoes or not.

And many soldiers placed their lives in the hands of the women who had packed their parachutes - a matter somewhat more critical than the (at present contentious) preloaded magazines, which as you rightly suggest, any soldier would rather check for himself. Even if the mags had been packed by men who were tall, young, and wore boots.

Apart from that, the safety/logistical argument against preloaded mags is compelling.

And I agree with you 110%. I put a smiley at the end as it was meant tongue in cheek. My mother was an Army Nurse in WWII stationed on Guadalcanal for 32 months and the women that riveted my dad's B-25 saved his life on several occasions. Regards, Rick.

[Sarge1998]

This topic came up recently on another forum and I considered the topic, how long can you leave a magazine loaded? I carried a Sig P220 for 17 years, I exchanged the 7 rd mags for 8 rd after about 4 years, I kept them loaded 24/7/365, everyone did. We only unloaded the mags when practicing, qualifying or changing duty ammo. Never had a malfunction, don't recall anyone else who did. It would be a good idea to change the springs every few years but I didn't think of it nor did any RSO ever suggest it, the same goes for my patrol rifle mags (AR type), and I did clean my mags once a year or sooner if necessary.

Not saying it's not a good practice to change springs but no one I ever came into contact with mentioned the practice. After 70 years it would be a good idea ( M1 Carbine packed in WWII) to change springs, heck I even changed recoil springs every few years. And I do unload, inspect and repack en blocs for the CMP ammo, it is good to check for the occasional bad round. It was said elsewhere that excessive loading/unloading will cause the spring to fatigue earlier than simply leaving them either loaded or empty.

[BRK]

Not sure about magazines from WWII but after the Battle of Long Tan (18th August, 1966) in the Phuoc Tuy Province of South Vietnam, the Australian Army adopted the practice of emergency ammunition resupply to troops in the field using loaded magazines in bandoleers.

This battle involved 108 men from D Company, 6 RAR clashing with 2,500 men from the Viet Cong 275 Regiment, reinforced with one North Vietnamese battalion and D445 Provincial Mobile Battalion.

During the above battle resupply was accomplished by dropping wooden crates of ammo from helicopters to the troops, a practice which was nearly as dangerous as the enemy.

I would assume that the loading would have occurred at local base level rather than being shipped from a long distance away already loaded.

Somewhere in the back of my head I recall seeing film of US resupply in a similar fashion.

[Peter Laidler]

Interesting thread especially regarding the compressed magazine springs. Very recently a metal detectorist brought into our main Armourers shop at the School of Infantry at Warminster a couple of loaded Bren gun magazines found lightly buried on an old wartime air-dropping zone. It was obvious whet they were by the shape but the rest was just a mass of rust. I banged the base of one on a workbench - as you do - and the rusty base plate and retainer flew off across the floor followed by the decompressing return spring and 25 rounds or so of 1944 .303" ammuntion. The next one was similar but had definately lost some of its compression.

Hi BRK........ Yep, remember D-445 well
Pete the Pom,
ex 8 RAR