S&W 52 magazines cause jam

I recently bought a nice S&W 53 with three magazines. One is an older one with the steel follower and it works perfectly. The other two are newer models with plastic followers and they cause jams all the time. Is there any secret trick to make them work? I tried squeezing the lips a bit but it doesn't help.

Are your jams FTF or FTE ?

I don't know about the newer magazines but I bought a couple old steel follower mags and replaced the springs. I got the springs from Numrich and they were a lot heavier than the originals and jammed (FTF) the gun ever time I used them. I switched those  mag springs from Numrich to Wolff and never had a problem again. I would check the spring tension on those mags and see if it's heavier than the old steel follower mag. To heavy a spring caused FTF in my 52 and I believe it's from the mag spring putting more force on the bottom of the slide than it was designed to and slowed the slide down and it turn the slide wouldn't pick up the next round clean and I'd get a 3 point jam. YMMV


Virgil

They are FTF actually. The rounds catch the bottom of the barrel hood and don't go into the chamber. If I push the slide forward just a bit, they would chamber, but it's not a practical solution for the sustained fire courses

I will try switching the spring.

Many thanks!

Are you loading your own ammo for the 52? If so, try using the Lee Factory Crimp die as the crimp is a critical variable for 52's. I have both metal and plastic follower mags and the factory crimp seems to feed well in both.

AllAces wrote:Are you loading your own ammo for the 52? If so, try using the Lee Factory Crimp die as the crimp is a critical variable for 52's. I have both metal and plastic follower mags and the factory crimp seems to feed well in both.

Yep, I do use the factory crimp die. I'm pretty sure it is a magazine issue.

To start from a baseline, I would get an 8# recoil spring and magazine springs from Wolff.
After installed then reevaluate the situation.
There could be other issues, but need to start in the right direction.
The M52 is a sweet pistol, but certain things pop up that the cause of malfunctions are not what you may think they are.
Just what I have learned from having had three of them.
Now only have my favorite one that I shoot, my 1968 M52-1.

Clarence

Perkins is right. The 52 can be one strange gun to figure out. I had FTF like I have described from the mag springs being to stiff. The strange part was that every once in a while I would get FTF from limp wristing my gun even when I upped the powder charge to 3.0 of BE. This was happening while shooting with the factory iron sights.

With my eyes getting older I decided to put a red dot on my S&W.  I  took my 52 and put a BME S&S52-rr slide mount on mine and put a Ultra Dot 30mm in Weaver rings. I also put a barrel weight that I got from DJPrecision. Everybody I talked to said that I should have gone with a 1" red dot because the 30mm weighed too much and it would not cycle the slide properly.  One would think that with the extra weight of the mount and red dot that the slide speed would be even slower than with just the iron sights. The surprising thing is now I can drop down to 2.5 of BE with the stock weight recoil spring and I never get a FTF or FTE and have not had an alibi since I installed these on my gun. If I tried shooting 2.5 of BE with irons it was jam city.The only thing I can figure is the extra weight of the barrel weight helps the gun stay steady even when I limp wrist it and the extra weight on the slide keeps it's momentum  better than just with the irons. I'm some what surprised but none the less happy that my alibi's with this gun are a thing of the past !


Virgil