Pros and cons of lighter springs?

skookumchuck

skookumchuck

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I'm hoping those with experience will chime in with their opinion on using lighter springs in a semi-auto. I spoke with the son of John at Custom Reloading, whose name I didn't get, about some malfunctions in my Shadow using their reloaded 9mm and he suggested going to a lighter recoil spring. I think the advantage would be fairly obvious, the spring is easier to compress using lighter loads, but are there any disadvantages I'm overlooking?
 
Recoil spring?
The gun hits harder and the gun can wear its self out prematurely of course now the "ive ran a 7lb recoil spring for 500 years and the gun is still new in box condition" folks will be jumping down my throat.
Not saying it will happen or how long it would take for detrimental effects to take place but it could.
 
If your gun will not reliably eject the cases from lighter loads, then a lighter spring is the solution. I had the opposite issue, most of what I shoot is factory spec or slightly hotter loads and I went with a heavier spring to stop my brass from being flung into the next county, now they just drop on the ground beside me. Plus as mentioned, the heaviest spring you can get away with that still allows the gun to function reliably will help reduce wear and tear.
 
This doesn't apply to your case but for those who switch to heavier springs for hotter loads, it must be remembered that while a heavier spring will slow the rearward motion of the slide, because of the energy stored up in the compression of a heavy spring it will decompress with greater energy, slamming the slide forward faster. This will exert greater wear on contact points in the gun. It's the old physics formula - every action has a similar reaction.
 
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good post. have been trying to make sense of the subtleties as well. was reading on another forum that a lighter spring actually reduced recoil more or made the gun more controllable, which seemed counter intuitive to me. and this was about changes on the margins here (i.e., 2lb drop in spring strength using the same 45 auto load, no functioning problems with either springs), not going from e.g. 460 rowland to a 45 target load. sounds like a good problem for some 1st hand experimentation
 
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Is the gun failing to eject with factory loads? Is the load it's choking on a reduced load? Is the gun clean (I know it's old fashioned, but Cz competition gun does not equal Glock combat gun, at least in the "runs with crud caked everywhere" event)? Will you be shooting just that one load (this is critical)? Which spring do you have in now?
 
I gather that you're getting their lighter competition reloads? Otherwise their regular reloads should cycle just fine.

As for the spring it's about tuning the spring to suit the ammo. If your ammo is coming out with a weak ejection path, you're getting the odd stove pipe and/or if the slide fails to lock back at the last shot from time to time these are all indicators that you need to use a lighter recoil spring with THAT ammo.

But putting in a lighter spring limits you to using the lighter recoil ammo. If you go back to regular power ammo for more than a few rounds you'll want to put the stock recoil spring back in. Otherwise the spring does not have the compression needed to absorb enough energy and the slide will hammer the frame at the rear of the travel. Over time this can lead to cracked and broken parts.

The other thing is that if your present recoil spring has many thousands of rounds under its coils then switching to a new stock spring will soften things up a little. Contrary to popular belief a good quality spring does not sag and soften. Instead it actually work hardens and becomes a little stiffer. Only cheap and poorly made springs sag and soften.
 
I mentioned to him that the 9mm I bought from him had a few fail to ejects and he thought maybe I had been given light competition loads. He explained that a lighter recoil spring would solve the ejection problems but didn't mention the potential problems with full load factory ammo. I have three different brands of factory ammo now so I don't think I should need to use a lighter spring.
 
its 9mm, factory and competition loads dont differ that much so using a bit lighter spring isnt going to harm the gun any. A lighter spring with make the slide move faster. Yes technically not faster moving forward, but its faster moving backwards and that is what you feel. it will also give you a longer pause for your next round to move into the proper spot for feeding. And an added bonus is that under recoil the slide will stay flatter for the first part of it and make it easier for you to call your shots.

you can go too light, but an 11lb spring in a shadow is just fine.
 
Lighter recoil spring means slower cycling if I'm not mistaken​
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Faster slide velocity since there i less resistance.

Cons are that the slide might batter the frame and decrease the life of the gun. increasing the mainspring on hammer guns could balance it out.

Pros are that you can shoot lighter/lower power ammo that otherwise wouldn't cycle.
 
IM_Lugger said:
Faster slide velocity since there i less resistance.

Cons are that the slide might batter the frame and decrease the life of the gun. increasing the mainspring on hammer guns could balance it out.

Pros are that you can shoot lighter/lower power ammo that otherwise wouldn't cycle.
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Faster slide velocity going back, at which point it slams into the locking lug and hangs up for a short period of time....and then has a slow velocity going forward. Overall, longer cycling time is what I remember reading, though I can't remember where.

Also, theoretically, the pro's and con's net out. You can shoot lighter ammo with lighter springs, and that same ammo shouldn't really be battering the frame anymore than hot ammo would with a heavy spring.

All in all, I think the main point is just to setup the springs to the type of ammo you are shooting and/or your preferences.
 
The batch number they put on the labels should tell John or Brad which ammo it is. And at that point if you got the lighter stuff you shouldn't have any trouble with exchanging it. The guys are good that way.

On the other hand if you get a lighter spring to let the ammo work for you then it's one way to find out if you like the slightly softer "barely rules legal" minimal power factor ammo and if your scores improve.

The problem will be in finding then waiting to get the new spring. But while you're waiting you can just shoot the other regular stuff.
 
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