Do you store your m14 cocked and locked?

chemo

chemo

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I was wondering if you guys stored your m14s cocked

Usually keeping tension on springs will work them out (mags for instance, if you keep em charged all the time the spring will soften), but to engage safety the rifle has to be cocked...

I store it uncocked, safety disengaged
what's best?

EDIT: looks like springs losing strenght only happen to me :p forget this part then
 
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Storing mags loaded will harm the springs? Why?

Every time I park my car, I store it with half the valve springs compressed...I have a car from 1964 with the original valve springs. They have therefore been compressed for approximately 20-25 years each with no effect.

Leaving springs compressed will not harm them. Spring cycling is what kills springs. They do not take a "set." That's a myth.

I store my 14s uncocked and unlocked, for no particular reason.
 
"...the spring will soften..." No they won't. Springs do not lose temper from being compressed. The bends of a flat spring like a mag spring can work harden from constant use, but they don't lose temper. Only high heat will do that.
"...store it uncocked..." Exactly. Hammer down. Action closed.
 
Springs only wear out with movement.. storing them loaded does nothing....

I also store my m14s and m1s with action closed and hammer down...
 
oh then I must've been unlucky, Ive had 2 rimfire mags so far that had their spring lose their strenght
From a Savage MKIIG if you may ask
 
I concur, springs only wear out from use, not from sitting in tension. If your .22 mag springs crapped out, it was because they were poor steel to begin with.
 
Some people in the pistol section of this forum report that to reduce the trigger pull on some of the Norinco pistols (which in same cases can be 28 pounds on some DA pistols) store their pistols cocked for several weeks which then softens the spring and reduce DA trigger pull down to 18 pounds or so. Several people mentioned this. I don't feel like searching for any specific thread on this topic to substantiate this but I am not making this up. Perhaps it does not apply to all firearms but possibly the chicom springs aren't of the best quality then?
 
Chevelle Malibu wagon, white, red interior...surf wagon!

As far as people softening trigger pulls...I'd want to see that objectively tested before I believed it but even if it worked, pulling the trigger a bunch of times would work faster, and regardless it would mean there was something wrong with the heat treat of the spring, so if that worked, I'd guess they are maybe 500-1000 rounds away from the spring no longer doing anything at all.
 
misanthropist said:
Leaving springs compressed will not harm them. Spring cycling is what kills springs. They do not take a "set." That's a myth.

I store my 14s uncocked and unlocked, for no particular reason.
Click to expand...
This is true from a physics perspective. The deformation (i.e. length change) of an ideal spring varies in a linear fashion according to the force applied. If the stress applied is below the "yield stress" (a material property), the deformation is elastic and the spring will return to it's original length when the force is removed. If the stress is beyond the yield stress, the spring will experience plastic deformation and will be permanently deformed. However, once the force is removed the newly deformed spring will have a higher yield stress (this process is called work hardening).

So whether or not you are doing any permanent damage to your springs is not related to how long you compress them, but rather how much force you are applying. As long as you are below the yield stress (and you are, otherwise your mags would wear out very quickly because they would yield every time you load them), it should not matter how long the mag is loaded for.

Now of course nothing in real life is 'ideal', so springs WILL wear out eventually. In most people's experience with magazines though, eventually = a really long time.

Further reading:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stress-strain_curve
 
Well, my personal mags work just fine after storage with ammo in them, but and it is a HUGE but, My issued mags after a month would not feed properly in my C7A2. I found you had to about every 3 weeks take the ammo out and clean the mags out of all the carbon build up and the dust( Afghanistan powder dust) so for us casual user's feel free to store ammo in them, for guys who lives depend on their mags working when they need them to.........I will say this, Pmags (thank you Savage) never failed when required!
 
Mine is stored with the hammer cocked, because I store it with the trigger guard unlocked so that the wood stock doesn't loosen.

Properly designed springs may wear out from cycling, but not from being compressed. Most firearm springs, such as recoil or magazine springs, are always compressed to some extent, but they do not lose strength just sitting. The same can be said for valve springs in a car engine, which are also preloaded with the valve closed.
 
I think the spring thing has been brought enough already...
I'll keep it uncocked safety disengaged
 
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