You depress the magazine follower with something like the eraser end of a pencil about halfway down, then run something like a heavy duty straightened out paper clip sideways through the inspection holes so that it holds the SPRING but not the follow in place. You can then shake the magazine follower out the top, and then remove the spring.

 

My technique from a recent thread…

http://forums.1911forum.com/showthread.php?t=434881

My technique, using common household tools (OK, stuff sitting in my garage), is to use a paint stirrer to depress the spring and follower (it is plenty long and gives you lots of leverage and it fits perfectly between the feed lips of the mag). Once the spring is depressed, put a golf tee (a lot safer if it goes flying than a screw or nail) in one of the witness holes to hold the spring down. That should leave the follower loose and you can shake it out of the top of the mag tube. Next, put your thumb over the top of the tube and remove the golf tee from the witness hole. The spring will expand, make sure you stop it with your thumb. Remove the spring, be sure to remember the orientation. There is a top and bottom, and a front and back to the spring. Make sure you put it back the same way it came out.

Welded base plate is the original 1911 design mag. They were all that way for probably 60 years + before a removable base pad showed up.

 

Outstanding information! I'll be stopping by Lowes to pick up a nice clean paint stirrer today!

Thank you gentlemen.

 

A paint stirrer? How about just loading 3-4 rounds into the mag. This way your not holding the mag in one hand, pushing down the stir with one hand, and trying it insert the nail with a third.

 

I use a piece of wood, but still use a nail. Do not play golf. Once you do it a few hundred or thousand times you can do it in your sleep.

 

I load a few rounds into the magazine, then drop the allen wrench I use for my grip screws into the witness hole just below where the follower is depressed. Shake out the follower, remove the spring. Don't need to buy anything.

 

If it's an original STYLE stamped steel follower, just use a smooth jawed needle nose pliers to carefully grasp the nose of the follower, pull it forward and down thus rotating it out of the feed lips of the magazine. Be sure to keep your thumb over the feed lips to prevent the spring from relocating your eyeball. Remove spring. Clean magazine & follower. Replace spring if necessary, then reinsert the spring making sure that the small loop on the end (if gov't style spring) or the shorter end is toward the rounded end of the magazine. To install the follower you can either hold the spring down with your thumb or use the spring compression/pin punch through the witness hole method, then rotate the follower back in square end first. Carefully (sort of) release the spring making sure that it seats into the follower properly, then depress/release a few times to make sure it's aligned properly and doesn't jamb up when you begin loading rounds. It's a good idea to use dummy rounds (no primers or powder) to test proper function before shoving the good stuff in there. Simple. Guess I'm too impatient to sit around shaking a magazine. I might start trying to play it like Maracas and dance a Rumba.... IEeeeeeee!