Liek other have said, buy quality, clean them, and rotate them every so often. I do it quarterly, when I replace the batteries in my kits, refresh the water, that kind of thing. (Yes, it does make me a busy beaver the first Saturday of every quarter. )<br><br>With tubular magazines, most of them can be opened. On most shotguns, it's just a nut. With lever actions and most .22s, it's a pain, but it can be done- get the full manual, and it should talk about it. Get a spare magazine spring from the manufactuer, and rotate those every few months.<br><br>Most of the shotguns around Casa de Raven are Remington 12 gauges, 1100s, 11-87s and 870s. In the two that are stored loaded, I have 20" and 21" barrels on them, with 7 shot tube extensions. For those, I scrounged the springs for some 8-shot extensions. It drops the capacity by one round, but I can't imagine those will fail. <br><br>If you can avoid it, don't store mags loaded in the first place. Use speedloaders, stripper clips, whatever works. It's not just a safety issue but a mechanical issue. <br><br>One last bit- shoot some of that premium defensive ammo. In fact, I recommend shooting 100 rounds of it WITHOUT cleaning the gun, to make sure that it will work. If I get one failure, then that ammo/gun combo isn't ready for primetime. That is done after at the start, and after any major mechanical modification (new barrel, new slide, new recoil spring, etc) to be sure. Then I run a magazine of it once a quarter or so. With a revolver, it isn't such a big deal, but with autoloaders, there are too many things that need to work right to not be sure.<br><br>While that eliminates exotics like Glasers and Magsafes, the exotic rounds don't have the greatest rep for feeding. And they look bad if you have to go to court, and odds are, you will if you have to shoot someone. Stick to 2nd and 3rd generation hollowpoints, that's my adivice. The reason for running the "real" load through every so often is so that you know if and how your point of impact changes from your practice round, and how recoil changes. <br><br>By the same token, I can't stress enough that if you are talking a defensive firearm, find someplace where you can do some night shooting. Sights that are great in the day frequently suck at night. You also want to find out how blinded you'll be by your own muzzle flash. Becuase if the stuff hits the fan, it's a fairly safe bet that the sun won't be up.<br><br>