Minor PF 9mm and Recoil Springs
- Thread starter Zee705
- Start date
I would, factory is around 13 lbs, It should still cycle fine even if you dont but if the slide can move easier then your felt recoil will be less. A 10lb is probably the most common with minor pf ammo but you may have to play with it depending how broken in and smooth your gun works, too light it may not have enough spring pressure to chamber the next round..
Look for the empties to be tossed roughly 3 feet (1M) to the side before falling below the height of the gun. Or if they come out at a low angle that they are at least flying along at a fair clip. If the empties tend to dribble out without much energy you may find you get more stovepipe jams. And that too weak of an ejection is the cause.
The other issue to watch for is a short slide stroke that results in occasional failure to lock open on the last round. If you find the gun doing that it's a good sign of the need for a slightly softer recoil spring.
The other issue to watch for is a short slide stroke that results in occasional failure to lock open on the last round. If you find the gun doing that it's a good sign of the need for a slightly softer recoil spring.
Sorry but I beg to differ, minor PF is a lot lighter than a factory full load, the difference in recoil and muzzle flip is very noticeable to the shooter as well as to the by stander, as an RO you get used to shooters using minor PF ammo and when someone shoots factory 9mm loads it sounds and looks like they are shooting a .40 in comparison.
That being said, changing the spring is more than just having it cycle reliably, most guns will shoot minor pf with no issue, but if your using more spring than necessary, more recoil is transferred into the frame and therefore to the shooter, a lighter spring allows the slide to move easier reducing some of that felt recoil and muzzle flip which has already been reduced somewhat by using a lighter load to begin with, this in turn will reduce the time it takes to get back on target and make follow up shots that much faster.
So if anything, I may want to try an 11 lbs. spring for felt recoil? This is the reason I decided to go with 147 gr. Let me know if my thinking is correct.
Can you elaborate on this? It seems to me that if a gun has, say, 5 pounds of recoil energy, that amount will get transferred to the hand, regardless of the spring. If the gun has a 1 pound spring, the energy transfer would eb rather sudden, when the slide hits the frame. No? And a stiffer spring would transfer the energy over the time of the slide travel. No?
Minor with a 147 is about 850fps. Full power is about 950 fps. To me, that is close enough to leave the spring alone, unless my gun was telling me something.
I was going to try titegroup first.
Chances are it will cycle just fine but what you want is to go with the lightest you can that still has enough strength to reliably strip a round off the mag and close.
With a lighter spring the slide moves easier transferring less energy to the frame, with a heavier spring the slide is harder to move which transfers more energy to the frame. This is the same reason why some guys in standard and open remove material from the slide which lightens it and makes it easier to move and allows a lighter spring to cycle it. Also although light hammer springs and skeletonized hammers are used mainly to lighten double action trigger pull they also contribute to the ease of the slide cycling.
Once the breach opens the pressure is released and the slide slamming into the frame is really a non issue for what were discussing here, to have a problem that way you would need to be so light on the spring that it wouldnt be strong enough strip off the next round.
Minor with a 147 is 850 but a stock gun is built to handle a 1300fps 115 (maybe more if its +p), which, depending on the powder your using could be up to 50% more. If your running a 147 at 850fps you want just enough spring to reliably close the slide, for me that is around 9 to 10 lbs, on my old gun with several thousand rounds thru it a 9lb runs fine but on my new gun when it starts to get dirty it can hang up the odd time but runs flawless with a 10lb.
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Should I bother with an aftermarket guide rod or just find a spring that fits the stock guide rod?
Yes, it will function just fine but you are still using a spring that was designed to handle a 1300+ fps factory load. If your going to run the lightest feeling load that the rules allow then to get the most advantage you can from that round you need to run the lightest spring you can that will still allow the gun to function 100%, for 90% of all the IPSC shooters I know it is around 10lbs.
If you hold the gun steady with your strong hand and cycle the slide with the other hand, the lighter the recoil spring is the less effort it will take for your strong hand to hold the gun steady.
After market parts other than sights and grips are a no no in ipsc production, most manufactures make both plastic and steel versions of guide rods as well as different rate springs, that being said some things are impossible to tell the difference if they were factory replacement or aftermarket.
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I'm taking Black Badge this weekend.
I'd be shooting in Standard as I have an APEX trigger and a few other No No's for Production.
just having some fun
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
If you have too soft if a spring and you have excessive frame to slide impact = felt recoil will go up and on top of that, why would you beat you gun up
I once tried a min load of trail boss and 200g lswc in a 1911 clone (200g x app 700fps) = 140pf and the gun even locked back on last round with a 20lb spring
you in theory just want the frame to kiss the slide not beat it with a sledge
I once tried a min load of trail boss and 200g lswc in a 1911 clone (200g x app 700fps) = 140pf and the gun even locked back on last round with a 20lb spring
you in theory just want the frame to kiss the slide not beat it with a sledge
Thats awesome, you will have a great time. Try not to let the timer throw you off, get your sight picture and make your shots, dont rush mag changes, when it comes to the draw and mag changes smooth is fast. Good luck and have fun.
Thats a lot of spring for 140pf, most standard guns running 170pf only run a 14-15 lb spring and run thousands and thousands rounds without damage. The factory spring that comes in a Tanfogilo limited custom .40 I believe is around 16 and the factory "match" replacement is around 13. For a spring to be so light that you beat up the gun using minor pf ammo it would not have enough strength to chamber the next round anyway.
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No argument from me. I run a 10lbs spring in a .40S&W 1911 for ipsc. I got it with a 17lbs. Front sight would not fall back onto target proper and I'd have to pull down. That is why I switched out the spring. Now it falls back onto target perfect.
I have a PC M&P and it will not cycle light loads due to the porting. But even with stiff loads & the 16lbs spring the red dot barely moves. Sight recovery is not a problem so I see no need to change the spring.
OP hasn't even tried any light reloads yet. His concerns seem to be proper function, not advantage at this point.
Sorry Ganderite but I'm going to call "shens" on that one. 100fps is a very significant amount of recoil energy difference. Shoot your 850 fps rounds back to back with some 950's and you'll instantly feel it. And the brass coming out the side will notice it too.
Back to the spring rating. The idea is that we want the spring to fully absorb all the recoil energy so that the slide is just shy of coming to a dead standstill in the frame just as the slide hits the frame or just barely before.
A stronger spring won't let it travel back fully and will result in weak ejection, stovepipe jams and some failures to lock back. But a lighter rate spring with full power ammo is just as bad but for different reasons. The slide comes back with more energy and the lighter rate spring cannot slow the slide down enough before it hammers into whatever stops the slide from moving. And that's hard on the metal in that area. Hit steel this hard enough times with a hammer, which the slide is acting like in this case and eventually something is going to break.
Bottom line is that the ammo we use must be matched to the proper recoil spring over a very narrow range of options. There is not a lot of room for messing around here.
There is one "out" and that is using a buffer. With the softness given by a durable buffer for the slide to hammer into we can run a somewhat lighter recoil spring. But I don't see the point. The slide is still going to hit the frame but through the buffer. And that means a more shocky feel to the recoil vs a spring which absorbs the energy over the full slide travel with little or no energy left at full rearward slide travel.
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