Howa Mini Magazines

[HokeyPokeyKid]

I thought I would start a new thread about feeding issues with the Howa mini and the Bell and Carlson stock, without piling on to the other threads going on.

I just picked up 3 more magazines yesterday and 2 of them would not feed the last round at all. The rounds just started up the ramp then the back of the cartridge dropped down and the bolt slid over the top, I had to drop the mag to clear the round every time.

I looked through my collection of gun parts and found the spring from a 15 round M1 Carbine looked similar. The wire diameter is bigger and the spring is much stiffer.

springs.jpg

With a little tweaking to fit the over bottom plate and the magazine went together and the feed issue stopped completely in both mags exhibiting problems. Loading the mags is noticeably stiffer but not difficult and the feed reliability went to 100% in the 2 mags that didn't work.

[grayfox]

Interesting. Also from what I see the M1C has 5 iterations of spring vs the howa has like 4 maybe 4 1/2. Maybe that helps in presenting the round as well?

Are these M1C springs maybe available as a piece/part?


ps, ETA - my mags so far feed ok for the Boyds that I have.

[HokeyPokeyKid]

Interesting. Also from what I see the M1C has 5 iterations of spring vs the howa has like 4 maybe 4 1/2. Maybe that helps in presenting the round as well?

Are these M1C springs maybe available as a piece/part?


ps, ETA - my mags so far feed ok for the Boyds that I have.

The springs I have I pulled from a 50 year old magazine, Wolff Springs makes replacements though so I am ordering a pack of ten to see how well they work in this application.

8 of my 10 magazines feed in my B&C stock but 2 don't, I believe that the magazines are easier to fix than the stocks.

[Taz575]

I notice that the springs are pretty weak on all of the Howa plastic mags, both Mini and short action (I have them for my Howa 308 as well). I may pick up some of these springs to try out!

[HokeyPokeyKid]

I ordered a 10 pack of Wolff Springs to try, They look slightly different in the pic, so I expect to have to modify the ends slightly to fit the factory follower and base plate but hopefully they work like the original M1 Carbine springs I have on hand.

I hope this will solve most of the issues people are having now and possibly be a good upgrade for this rifle as well.

[BobinNC]

Not saying the Wolff springs won't work, but here are some other sources....

https://www.gunpartscorp.com/products/545210

https://www.ebay.com/itm/US-M1-Carbine-Original-Magazine-Springs-Set-of-QTY-X2-USGI-NOS/323672125710?hash=item4b5c5cb10e:g:7zYAAOSwnQ1cUNWd

https://www.ebay.com/itm/3-U-S-Military-M1-Carbine-Standard-magazine-springs-bundle-of-3/273571131010?hash=item3fb21c2e82:g:P6YAAOSw8Mxb9IVE

[HokeyPokeyKid]

Not saying the Wolff springs won't work, but here are some other sources....

https://www.gunpartscorp.com/products/545210

https://www.ebay.com/itm/US-M1-Carbine-Original-Magazine-Springs-Set-of-QTY-X2-USGI-NOS/323672125710?hash=item4b5c5cb10e:g:7zYAAOSwnQ1cUNWd

https://www.ebay.com/itm/3-U-S-Milit...YAAOSw8Mxb9IVE

Thanks for the links!

The first link has springs that look identical to the springs I have on hand, and I have ordered from them many times. They will work as well as anything out there.

The only reason I didn't order those is a lot of times they're surplus parts and I was hoping to find a current manufacture spring that is available. This is good that replacements are easily found if this pans out as a viable alternative.

[BIGHORN66]

Hokey:

With using the M1C springs, did it still allow you to load 5 rounds in the magazine?

Thanks.

[HokeyPokeyKid]

Hokey:

With using the M1C springs, did it still allow you to load 5 rounds in the magazine?

Thanks.

Yes all 5 rounds still load.

I think a I might take one coil off the spring,
the last round is pretty stiff to load and the magazine bulges slightly.

The rounds jump out pretty vigorously if you don't work the bolt quickly.

[HokeyPokeyKid]

As soon as my 10 pack of springs arrives I will experiment further, right now I only have 2 surplus springs that I'm moving between different magazines to test function.

[Gunner75]

Nice

[flatland1]

Hokey - I've been building rifles on the Mini action since August of 2016. Would've started a month or three earlier, but somehow, someone at LSI sent me a 6.5 Grendel bbl'd action with a s/n prefix of 'XP', which I guess stood for 'experimental prototype'. When I let it slip that I had this action in a phone conversation with my former contact at LSI, he nearly went ballistic, and made it very clear that this action should never have left the LSI facility, and wanted it back, ASAP. That was in February of '16, and I didn't receive a replacement 6.5 Grendel bbl'd action until August of that year. I offer this info as sort of an explanation/justification for my opinion that the folks at LSI are not always sure what's going on. The people at Howa are most likely the ones that made the decision to go with the plastic trigger guard & magazines, and I've never really forgiven them for that. Whatever....pointing fingers seldom does much good, so on to my point & reason for this post.

Over the 14 years since I started building rifles, I've used a fair number of Badger Ordnance M5 DBM units on my own & customers' rifles. When there were feeding issues, we almost always looked at the magazine latch - if the bolt was rubbing on the magazine feed lips, we shortened the mag latch; if it was a case of bolt overriding cartridges, failing to pick them up & feed smoothly, we called B-O to order a longer mag latch. IIRC, they offer three different lengths of latches, and I've never had a feeding issue that a mag latch of the correct length didn't fix.

I emailed DIP over a month ago explaining this, after I'd had to cut the bottom metal inlet .035"-.040" deeper on a Boyds stock for the Mini. Maybe they don't have time to answer their emails, or maybe they thought mine was too whiney - I explained that I'd gotten to the point where my DIP DBM was perfectly flush in the Boyds' stock inlet, front & rear, so that I didn't really want to use the mill to cut the bottom inlet deeper, and was hoping that - especially since they'd announced & were making the new flush mag latch to work in their DIP DBM - that they'd consider making some latches with a longer latch nose that would hold magazines up a bit higher, thus fixing the failure to feed issues some of us were having. Never heard anything back, and haven't bothered to send another message. I suppose I could try drilling some very small holes in the nose of the mag latch & mixing up a dab of J-B Weld to build up the latch end of one of my OEM mag latches - in the hope that enough of the epoxy would go down into the drilled holes & reinforce the built-up engagement surface. But what I'd really like to see is for someone with your programming & fixturing skills to make some mag latches of extra length. A longer metal (aluminum) latch can easily be cut/filed shorter by the rifle's owner, and believe this would be a better fix in the long run. Would like to hear your thoughts on the matter.

Best regards,
Dennis

[HokeyPokeyKid]

I have a longer magazine latch drawn up and ready to prototype, I am really just waiting for available machine time here in the shop.

I am personally fond of this little action and want to make as many improvements as I can. Hopefully down the road all the combined labor and trial and error put forth on this forum and others will make this little rifle great.

[grayfox]

Both of you guys, I just want to say...
Amazing what good ole' American ingenuity can do when Corporate bean-counters ignore things!!!
By the way, where has Matt-Lsi been all these threads?

[hill37]

I'm beginning to wonder if LSi is farming out the replacement mags?