Just remember that those magazines were individually hand-made and individually fitted to a particular rifle. They were definitely NOT machine-made, nor were they 100% interchangeable.
During the manufacturing process, each rifle was FITTED with its own magazine, which stayed with the rifle. This modern idea of swapping magazines about like little kids swapping marbles is a result of machine mass-production of truly interchangeable magazines........ which become interchangeable largely as a result of being made loosely, rather than a tight fit. The original idea with the LE magazine was for it to fit relatively tightly. This could not be achieved at that time with machine-work, so the old skills of hand manufacture and hand-fiting were used instead. In the 1880s and up until after the Great War, there were a lot more people around who could do this type of work.
So what you do is one of two things:
1. look for a magazine which is a closer fit to your rifle, or
2. fit the magazine you have to the rifle you have.
Is the magazine going far enough upward in the mag well? If it is, why doesn't the mag catch snag onto it? Is something impeding parts movement? Or are the parts themselves insufficiently large to do the job? Is the woodwork stopping the magazine from rising high enough? Thse are all common faults.
One point: are you sure that the magazine you have is for a Number 1 Rifle? The magazine for the Number 4 Rifle was very similar but it was NOT designed to be fully interchangeable with the older Number 1 magazine, even if they look very similar. The Number 4 magazine has a SINGLE long rib down the middle of the back of the magazine. The proper Number 1 magazine has a rib composed of 3 parts, plus a tiny rivet and a funny little spring. The Number 4 magzine often is a single steel drawing, whereas the Number 1 magazine has the floorplate BRAZED on.
Hope this is some help. Believe me, I know how frustrating this can be!
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