Question On Model 52 Plastic Mag Follower

[Rick H.]

Hi All: Knowing there has long been a pro and con discussion on steel versus plastic magazine followers for Model 52 pistols, I discovered that a couple of my plastic follower magazines do not work as well as I thought they did. The end result of this is no lock back of the slide after the last round is fired. This is no real big deal, but it is a pain at times. I "think" I know what the problem is but I am not 100% sure. What I do know is that the plastic follower on my problem mags is not engaging the arm on the back of the slide stop. All my steel follower mags have no problem engaging the slide stop arm. The plastic followers are about .035" slimmer than the steel followers in the area where the follower engages the slide stop.

Finding any followers these days, steel or plastic, is next to impossible so I tried to think up a way of correcting the problem. The first idea that popped in my head was to have someone 3-D print a follower from an appropriate media, but I don't know anyone that 3-D prints anything. Does anyone have an idea who may do this type of work and if so could you PM the information to me, or email it to me at [email protected]

Thanks for any help on this.

Rick H.

 

[VASCAR2]

On several firearms if the magazine spring is weak the follower isn’t pushed up fast enough or high enough to catch the reciprocating slide. Have you tried swapping mag springs or tried new magazine springs?

 

[jag22]

Based on what vascar said why not remove the base plate and put some sort of spacer in place, may have to experiment with different sizes. Wouldn't cost anything to try. If it doesn't help then you are more sure it is the follower.

 

[Rick H.]

At least we think along the same lines. I replaced the mag springs with Wolf springs that I have in my supply and it made no difference. The Wolf springs are quite a bit longer than the OEM springs. Then I thought perhaps the mag bodies may be out of spec so I switched the plastic followers with metal ones from other mags on hand. As soon as I put the metal followers in the problem went away completely. The locator ridges on the metal followers are wider than on the plastic followers by approx. .035" so that may be part of the issue here. After further examination it would appear the magazine follower is moving to the right slightly in the mag body. When it does this the arm on the back of the slide lock sneaks past the follower and is not pushed "up" by the follower resulting in no lock back. At times the arm on the back of the slide lock lever will actually jam with the side of the plastic follower making it difficult to remove the magazine. I can only assume that Smith and Wesson intentionally made the plastic follower slightly narrower than the metal follower to avoid any problems with interference in the mag body. Most certainly I did not use these plastic follower mags enough to wear off .035" of an inch of hard plastic and there is no corrosion what so ever inside the mag bodies.

Rick H.