You wouldn’t shoot through a thousand rounds without cleaning your gun, so why would you shoot through a thousand rounds without cleaning your ZF-5 or MP5 magazine?
Yeah, we don’t know either, which is why we assembled this brief (but helpful guide).
ZF-5 / MP5 Magazine Disassembly and Cleaning
Say you’ve burned through a few hundred rounds at the range. When you get home, your chamber, bore, and bolt carrier are probably pretty much caked with fouling, right?
Drop the MP5 magazine and take a look at that, too. The fouling that sprayed all over the action is probably coating the mag’s feed lips, follower, and maybe even the interior of the mag, too.
After a while, that fouling will corrode your mag spring and complicate feeding. So it’s best you put your mag on a decent cleaning schedule, just like your gun.
Luckily, MP5 magazine maintenance is easy. The first thing you’ll want to do is remove the floor plate of the mag.
Once you have loosened the floor plate, detain it with your hand as the spring and follower will want to jump out. Remove the floor plate, mag spring, and follower carefully and set these aside.
For this next step, you’ll need a good cleaner like Hoppe’s No. 9 as well as a clean rag. A brass brush can also be useful here too.
First, wipe down the exterior of the magazine as well as the feed lips. Using a bore light, check out the interior of the mag. If it’s coated with fouling, use a bore brush or a mop and some solvent and clean out the interior, too. Then place the mag body aside and allow it to dry.
Now turn your attention to the mag spring and follower. Using the solvent indicated, wipe down the top of the follower carefully. This is a place where fouling tends to accumulate. If you have any stubborn deposits, dislodge them with a brass brush; our followers are made with stainless steel and won’t sweat the scouring.
Once you’ve cleaned the follower of all visible deposits of fouling, it’s time to make that MP5 magazine spring shine.
Wipe the spring down with a rag and some solvent – whatever you need to dislodge any fouling that has coated the spring. Be sure to strip it all off. It won’t make a huge difference in the short term but over time, fouling will accelerate corrosion.
Use the brass brush here if you need it, too. Make sure you get all of the fouling off of the spring that you can find. Pay close attention to the turns in the spring, as these are the areas where fouling will really build up.
Once you’ve cleaned the spring, wipe it with a clean white rag; it should come off clean, not black, brown, or gray. Then, place the spring aside to dry.
Once the mag body, follower, and spring are all dry, it’s time to treat them with a light – read, light – coat of oil. A gun oil like Rem Oil will work wonders here.
The reason you should only treat them lightly is that too much oil is not necessary. All it will do is serve as a sticky magnet for more fouling and dust, which will both accelerate abrasion and corrosion.
Wipe the spring, follower, and mag body to apply a very light coating of oil, just to serve as a barrier to corrosion.
After you’ve done that, reassemble the magazine in reverse order, first installing the follower and spring. Then compress the spring, hold it in place, and secure the floor plate once more.
That’s MP5 magazine maintenance in a nutshell.
What Makes Our MP5 Magazine Superior
Lucky for you, if you’ve gone a few trips to the range without cleaning your ZF-5 or MP5 magazine yet, it’s probably alright, especially if you got it from us.
Our MP5 magazines are built to a high standard of quality and are treated to resist abrasion and corrosion.
The mag body features all-steel construction with superior welds and features reinforced feed lips. It’s also finished with an electro-plated black finish which affords exceptional corrosion resistance.
There are a few other things that set our MP5 magazines apart from the competition. They feature steel followers, high-tensile strength compression springs, and it even features a round-count indicator that makes it easy to see how many rounds you have left.
In other words, they’re durable enough to go a few shooting sessions without a cleaning, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t let them sit forever. The next time you disassemble your ZF-5 for cleaning, give your mags the once-over as well, to keep them both on the same schedule.
Questions About MP5 or ZF-5 Maintenance? Contact Us
Do you have questions about ZF-5 assembly or disassembly, or more detailed questions about how to clean our ZF-5 and HK MP5 magazines? If so, get in touch with our customer service at [email protected] or call us at 434-202-7790 for more information.