recoil spring weight

[drollerindy]

If I put a heavier recoil spring in my 1911, will the slide slamming forward pull my front sight back down on target?

Doug

[Hunter]

No but it could accelerate wear on your pistol.

[RickB]

Heavier than stock will probably push the sight below the target.

[John]

Use the standard 16 lbs spring (if your pistol has a 5" barrel) and get yourself an EGW firing pin stop together with a 23 lbs main spring. Check this thread out:

http://forum.m1911.org/showthread.php?t=13060

[mousemouse]

i have a colt mkiv and it seems to have some trouble with the range reloads. It stovepipes some rounds, about 4 in 150. I didnt have any of these when i was breaking it in with factory load fmj, so im guessing the reloads are weak. If this is the case, would a weaker recoil spring be the solution? Im guessing 14lbs instead of 16. what do you think?

[Pappy]

With a heavier action/recoil spring, you may find the slide going to battery quicker than the magazine can present the next round. Jam, esp if the mag spring is not up to the task...

[Tom]

Springs are not a substitute for trigger control.

[log man]

i have a colt mkiv and it seems to have some trouble with the range reloads. It stovepipes some rounds, about 4 in 150. I didnt have any of these when i was breaking it in with factory load fmj, so im guessing the reloads are weak. If this is the case, would a weaker recoil spring be the solution? Im guessing 14lbs instead of 16. what do you think?

A 14# recoil spring would be a good choice.

LOG

[niemi24s]

i have a colt mkiv and it seems to have some trouble with the range reloads.
What are "range reloads"?

Reloads you buy at the range?

Reloads you load to shoot at the range?

Whichever they are, if they feel fairly mild, Log Man's 14lb spring advise should be followed.

[mousemouse]

niemi24s: reloads i buy at the range, and they feel weaker than factory loads. I'll try the 14lb route.

tom: trigger control contributes to jams? i'm a noob so i know little... but how does this happen?

[toolman]

tom: trigger control contributes to jams? i'm a noob so i know little... but how does this happen?
I think he means that if you want the muzzle to come down more quickly, concentrate on your shooting technique. Replacing springs isn't the way to make the muzzle come down more quickly.

[RickB]

But, choosing a spring based on someone's idea of the perfect ejection distance is good? Or, because a manufacturer recommends one? Installing a lighter spring will allow the gun to shoot flatter and return to target more quickly/naturally. That certainly seems like as good a reason to change spring rates as any.

[toolman]

Installing a lighter spring will allow the gun to shoot flatter and return to target more quickly/naturally. That certainly seems like as good a reason to change spring rates as any.
Sure, if the spring rate matches up with the ammo you're using. It's the lighter recoil target ammo that makes for less recoil and a quicker return to the target, not the recoil spring. A lighter recoil spring with hard ball or even (gasp!) +P ammo merely batters the poor old 1911 unnecessarily.

[niemi24s]

I think he means that if you want the muzzle to come down more quickly, concentrate on your shooting technique.
And, in turn, I think what Toolman means is a combination of your shooting stance and how you grip the gun.

For me (not being built like King Kong with hands the size of a catcher's mitt) the secret is grip strength - how hard you grip the gun. My old shooting coach said I should grip the gun until I began to tremble from the effort, and then back off until the trembling stopped.

It worked wonders for me during timed and rapid (5 shots in 10 seconds) fire events.

Cheers

[toolman]

For me (not being built like King Kong with hands the size of a catcher's mitt) the secret is grip strength - how hard you grip the gun.
Yep. I have the same problem. My small hands don't have a lot of grip strength. I tried the parallel thumbs grip but I couldn't maintain the grip during recoil. My off hand would slide down during recoil. I've gone back to the locked thumbs grip, that seems to work better for me.

[RickB]

It's the lighter recoil target ammo that makes for less recoil and a quicker return to the target, not the recoil spring. A lighter recoil spring with hard ball or even (gasp!) +P ammo merely batters the poor old 1911 unnecessarily.

We'll just have to disagree on that.

[Joni Lynn]

My Colt 1911's run fine with the 16 pound Wolf and the LB's run fine with whatever they put in them, it's a 18 or 18.5 variable. I haven't found any advantage to lighter springs and the heavier springs would probably cause undue wear to the slide stop or the frame.

[bountyhunter]

My Colt 1911's run fine with the 16 pound Wolf and the LB's run fine with whatever they put in them, it's a 18 or 18.5 variable. I haven't found any advantage to lighter springs and the heavier springs would probably cause undue wear to the slide stop or the frame.

Impossible, it violates the laws of physics. The slide only has the energy imparted to it by recoil, and that is the energy the recoil spring absorbs going back. Changing the spring weight does not change the energy at all, it does change how far back the slide travels under force of that energy. That is why a heavy recoil spring can cause feed jams from "short stroking" where the slide doesn't go far enough back. Coming back into battery, the slide will have the velocity resulting from initial recoil energy minus what is lost to friction and stripping the round and feeding it up.

The frame will get undue wear from LIGHTER springs because the slide will have more velocity (and thus more energy) when it slams into the frame going back. The lighter spring absorbs less recoil energy leaving more to batter the frame.

[Joni Lynn]

From what I've been told by a few people that know what they're talking about, a heavy spring can cause undue stress on the slide stop and it's two frame holes but then again maybe my friends 10mm cracked there for reasons other than the ridiculously heavy spring he had in it. This is wear from the slide going forward, not the recoil part of the stroke but the return.

[RickB]

The slide travels all the way to the rear with every shot. What changes, with spring rate, is how hard it hits the frame, and how fast ir returns. A heavy spring slows the slide too much under recoil, then sends it home too fast.

[niemi24s]

Another way of looking at what RickB said is that if the recoil spring weight is increased to be just strong enough to prevent the slide's recoil spring plug tunnel from hitting the guide rod flange, the slide cannot dissipate any of its kinetic energy to the frame by this impact.

But the kinetic energy the slide got before the bullet left the barrel is the same (assuming the same ammo) so the spring must store more energy. It was still compressed to the same length but is a stronger spring than before. With more energy to return to the same slide mass, the slide delivers more impact energy to the slide stop cross pin (through the barrel's lower lugs).

At least that's the way this Junior Woodchuck/Wile E. Coyote physicist got it fingered out.

[John]

Impossible, it violates the laws of physics. The slide only has the energy imparted to it by recoil, and that is the energy the recoil spring absorbs going back. Changing the spring weight does not change the energy at all, it does change how far back the slide travels under force of that energy. That is why a heavy recoil spring can cause feed jams from "short stroking" where the slide doesn't go far enough back. Coming back into battery, the slide will have the velocity resulting from initial recoil energy minus what is lost to friction and stripping the round and feeding it up.

The frame will get undue wear from LIGHTER springs because the slide will have more velocity (and thus more energy) when it slams into the frame going back. The lighter spring absorbs less recoil energy leaving more to batter the frame.


Have you ever thought that springs work in two ways?

You are correct that the spring absorbs the energy of the recoiling slide, as the slide moves back and a weaker spring will absorb less of that energy. When the slide goes all the way back, it will hit the frame, which has been designed to absorb that hit. If you go to the extreme, the slide can short-cycle with a very heavy recoil spring, not allowing it to go all the way back.

When however it is coming forward, it has the full energy that the recoil spring imparted to the slide. The heavier the recoil spring the more that energy will be. As the slide moves forward, the barrel legs hit the slide stop pin. Neither of these two parts/areas (slide stop pin and barrel legs) were designed to take excessive poundage. That's why a heavier recoil spring can cause damage to the barrel legs, slide stop pin and eventually the slide stop holes on the frame.

[berkbw]

The recoil spring/ammo balance is fairly critical in a 1911. Too much of either, or both, can have a serious effect on the gun parts. One great way to help things is to do the oversized firing pin stop modification [including a 23# mainspring. A newish gun or build should be able to have the slide move all the way, to and fro, when on a stripped frame [no disconnector] that is tipped to a 45' angle. If the recoil spring is too weak, it will be unable to store enough energy to keep the slide from crashing hard against the frame. Frames and slides break. If it is too strong, it will have enough energy left [the extra came from installing the heavy spring] to crash into battery. This is bad for the slide stop pin, the bbl. lugs, and the holes in the frame for the pin. Heavy springs may also cause "short cycling", where the slide returns to pick up a new round before it's ready. It jams.

I seriously doubt that anyone can/will shoot 80k .45 Super rounds through one slide/frame combo, but you may in a properly balanced .45 with std. ammo. If you only shoot 1k, or so a year, it probably doesn't matter much about "balance".

b-

[bountyhunter]

The slide travels all the way to the rear with every shot. That is abosulutely NOT a universal truth. If the shooter has a weak "limp wrist" grip, the slide will definitely short stroke and not go all the way back causing mis feeds. I have seen it more times than I could count. Some new .40 guns (which use 20 - 22# recoil springs) will short stroke because they are tight regardless of how strong your grip is. My SIG 226-40 would not lock the slide open after the last round for the first 500 rounds of use. That's how long it took to loosen the fit and wear in the recoil spring to let the slide go back far enough to get behind the slide stop.

[bountyhunter]

Another way of looking at what RickB said is that if the recoil spring weight is increased to be just strong enough to prevent the slide's recoil spring plug tunnel from hitting the guide rod flange, the slide cannot dissipate any of its kinetic energy to the frame by this impact.
Maybe, but the majority of the kinetic energy is CONSERVED in that collision. If not, the frame would be battered to death in a very short time. If you drop steel ball bearing onto the top of an anvil from six feet up, something like 95% of the energy is conserved and neither is visibly dented. In a metal to metal collision, most of the energy is conserved as the steel goes through an elastic compression and then relaxes giving it back. Not 100%, and that's why eventually the frame does show batter wear, but the re isn't a huge loss in the collision.


But the kinetic energy the slide got before the bullet left the barrel is the same (assuming the same ammo) so the spring must store more energy. It was still compressed to the same length but is a stronger spring than before. With more energy to return to the same slide mass, the slide delivers more impact energy to the slide stop cross pin (through the barrel's lower lugs).

But there are many other considerations: the slide coming forward gives up a lot of energy stripping a round, forcing it up under the extractor, and then chambering the round. What I have seen, the slide's ability to do that is not so much because of velocity, it's how much actual energy is still in the spring at that point.

Also, in the "heavy spring case" (assuming the slide stops before hitting the frame), the slide has to accelerate from a dead stop and it is a shorter distance. In the case of the collision scenario, the slide gets a "rebound effect" coming off the impact with the frame kicking it forward and it then has a longer distance to add to that initial velocity.

CONSIDER THIS: there is a recoil spring that has BOTH the heavy spring (stops before the frame) and light spring. They are dual spring recoilmaster setups. They absolutely stop the slide before the frame, thus storeing 100% of the kinetic energy..... yet they do NOT stress the barrel lugs. In fact, many will have the "stop short of battery" problem because the light spring acting in the forward portion of the stroke doesn't have enough kick to push the round fully into the chamber. In your analysis, it should be slamming into battery from the heavy spring storing all the energy and imparting slide velocity, yet it barely gets there (when it does) because the lighter spring in effect doesn't have enough stored energy and the velocity alone ain't getting it done. I have seen that happen.

If you don't believe me, try them in your gun. They will stop the slide before striking the frame, but they don't increase battering going forward into battery.

[bountyhunter]

When however it is coming forward, it has the full energy that the recoil spring imparted to the slide. That's the fundamental error: when the slide is coming into battery, it does not have the full kinetic energy, it has lost most of it. It has lost it in the feeding action, forcing the round against the spring load of the extractor, and forcing the round up and into the chamber.

And, I have seen that the slide needs spring energy in the end more than velocity: velocity is stopped EASILY: if it chambers up and the round case hangs on the edge of the chamber. If there is still some spring load, it can keep pushing and get in.

The point is, the spring weight alone doesn't predict how much velocity the slide is going to have as it locks into battery. But, it certainly does predict the velocity it will have as it hits the frame going back (or if it reaches that point at all).

[berkbw]

This is like these novels I read..but missing the end. what is your bottom line to this, Sir?

b-

[RickB]

If we are talking standard .45 loads in something approximating a G.I. pistol (we'll call that a standard .45 pistol), the slide will go all the way to the rear on every shot. If you physically block the movement of the slide, use weak ammo, use the wrong recoil spring, etc., it's possible to create a condition in which the slide will not stop against the frame, yes. Some guns, especially those with very short barrels and slides, feed almost exclusively via energy "stored" in the slide immediately as it moves forward from being fully stopped against the frame, as the spring retains almost no load as it nears its installed length. One of the reasons why 5" 1911s are more reliable than shorter guns, as there is still spring energy available to drive the slide home even as cartridges are chambering and slowing the slide.

[bountyhunter]

One of the reasons why 5" 1911s are more reliable than shorter guns, as there is still spring energy available to drive the slide home even as cartridges are chambering and slowing the slide. Which is why variable rate springs (softer at the start) or dual rate springs are notorious for stopping just short of battery. They have LESS stored energy at the same location of the slide.

That's the point I have been making and nobody seems to get: it's not slide velocity near the front that gets it done as much as what push the spring has. Also, the velocity (and force) going into battery is more dependent on how smooth the action is, extractor tension, magazine feed lip smoothness, and other factors that drag on the slide.

That's why you can have a 5" Para 1640 with a 22# recoil spring that doesn't go into battery some times and you can have a 5" 9mm 1911 with a 12# recoil spring that goes in 100%.