Stovepipe problem with Kriss mags likely solved

Like many other owners, I've experienced multiple failures to feed with rounds stove-piping at 45 and 90 degrees. My issues only occurred with the extended Kriss magazines and always the second or third to last round in the mag. The standard 13 round mags have always fed perfectly for me. This still sucked because I wanted 25 rounds on tap and I wanted the rifle to be reliable as it's primarily a home defense weapon (in addition to getting plenty of range use - I believe in being intimately familiar with my firearms).

I sent my 3 extended magazines back to Kriss because they said the failures may have been due to a bad batch of mags from Glock. The new mags had the same issue and needless to say I was pretty disappointed. I decided to pull the new mags apart to inspect and clean them, and remove any possible flashing that may be causing the follower to hang up.

At that point I observed something peculiar...

All of the springs were "twisted". What I mean by this is that when I placed each spring on its "back" the top coil (that contacts the follower) was pointing at 12 o'clock, and the last coil (that contacts the floor plate) was pointing at 2 o'clock or thereabouts.

So, I twisted each spring coil-by-coil until all the coils, especially the first and last coils pointed to 12 o'clock, effectively "straightening out" the springs.

After 250 rounds I haven't had another failure to feed. I suspect that as the last rounds were being pushed up by the spring, the twist in the spring was somehow causing the the follower to bind and creating the stovepipe. Once I get another 250 or so rounds through the gun without any stove pipes, I'll consider this issue solved. I'll let y'all know how it goes.

If any of y'all are having the stovepipe problem, especially with the Kriss extended mags, inspect your springs and see if they're twisted. If so, straighten the springs out and maybe that will cure the problem.

Thanks for the heads up.

Thank you for giving us something to look for, good to know we have some good "gun detectives" on the forum, manufacturers usually don't spend the time looking into an issue and just replace parts until the problem goes away or the customer gives up and sells their gun.

nice find!