yeah the longer body mags provide a much better purchase when doing mag changes.
For those of you who've run your mags for years without taking them apart, lol, sorry you obviously don't shoot much. My springs last about a year. After that I start getting feeding issues. If you only shoot a couple thousand rounds a year then yeah, your mags might last that long with no issues, but a lot of us shoot that in a couple days or less during heavy practice, and that much every couple of weeks during the slow season. As for cleaning them, that depends on where you're shooting, if you are always on clean pads (concrete or otherwise) you'll be fine, but sand, dirt and other debris will cause mags to fail, all mags, even the mighty Glock mags. Cleaning your mags is as important as cleaning your gun (hmm did I just compare that?). And finally, the plastic bottom half mags so many are stuck with, they do break, regularly, I've got a nice bin of broken pads from my own mags and from student's mags. Concrete floors are particularly hard on mags especially loaded ones, even the feed lips will bend and crack if dropped often enough.
