Vangunsmith,

You made a decent guess about the magazine spring being backwards, but the spring is riveted to the follower. The body of the magazine is tapered front to back same as the follower, and this means that the follower and spring can only beinserted one way. My gunsmith verified this. He said that he could not do anything for this rifle. I tookthe gunto a 2nd gunsmith (a Browning certified repair shop); he is going to call Browning.

The magazine is really cheap: the follower is plastic, and it does not make the top bullet lie "poking upwards" so to speak, so that the bullet has a chance of entering the chamber. Plus, the magazine's bottom plate will fall out of the magazine if you handle the magazine wrong.

This whole problem may turn out to be just a defective magazine. Maybe I need to look for a non-Browning magazine. John Browning would never have let a gun like this out the door.

The next time that you have the opportunity look at any of the threeA-Bolt WSSM calibers. You might see what I am talking about.
John
P.S. The spring is a Z-shaped accordion type spring, typical of many guns.