Leaving the slide locked back/recoil spring compressed wont affect spring life.Originally Posted by Jeep
At room temp, defect diffusion in steel is on the order of a nanometer per year IIRC.
Leaving the slide locked back/recoil spring compressed wont affect spring life.
At room temp, defect diffusion in steel is on the order of a nanometer per year IIRC.
Random nerd question... What percentage of springs in the firearms industry would you guess at being properly designed thus adhering to the quote? I won't hold ya to it, I am just curious as I have often wondered if some springs weren't poorly designed.
Think for yourself. Question authority.
Bill: I'm no engineer, but is it possible that locking back a slide for a long time on an already worn recoil spring can result in more wear than that? I ask, because I have seen already-worn recoil springs seem to weaken after a prolonged lock-back. Perhaps it was just observer error, but the springs didn't work too well after that (admittedly it happened--or seemed to happen in Tokarevs, whose recoil springs wear out pretty fast).
Nope. What kills springs is the number of cycles. Not the duration of compression.
Assuming a consistent spring material. Crappier material = fewer cycles.
Flat wire springs last longer because they are loaded in bending, coil springs are loaded in torsion. And that is why I tell my students that differential equations IS something you will use later on in life.
I have no idea. But let's just say, now that I got my cherry popped in this industry, I'm convinced no one has any idea as to what they are doing.
So are English.
Is it that black and white, or is it a tendency? Do flat wire springs load only in bending, or mostly in bending, some in torsion? It's a very interesting point that makes sense (at least as a tendency) and makes me want to work on very wee flat wire springs.
Heh. Anyway, Differential Equations, used in this context, is a singular subset of Mathematics. Like Organic Chemistry is a subset of Chemistry. Think of it as the "discipline and study of Differential Equations".
Rarely in life is there a truly simply loaded member. There is some bending in a wound round wire spring. There is some torsion in a flatwire. But not a significant amount.
This is what I suspected. Which is why I was surprised to find some 1911 springs that failed to slide lock after being compressed for 6 months when left empty for a few months and tried again locked back with complete consistency.
I had repeated the phrase that springs don't take sets so many times but yet my own experience contradicted that until a lightbulb moment came.
Properly designed springs operated within their range of design don't take sets from compression.
Crush a 1911 magazine with a multi-ton press. That will take a permanent change.
Most manufacturers I've ever heard of will not tell you what the spring wire they're using is.
Spring design is a compromise. It will always be. Some generalities: harder materials make better springs, as harder materials typically have a more defined elastic region. With metals, there is no such thing as a purely elastic region. A spring that "shortens" over time is generally preferred over one that breaks.
There are 3 types of Browning short recoil systems: the 1911/1935, the SIG, and the striker fired.
Correctly set up, the 1911/1935 design uses the "recoil spring" as a "reaction spring". By that, it's primary function is to feed a round and return the slide to battery.
The SIG design the hammer does nothing to retard the slide's reward velocity, which operates like a striker fired gun. This is my biggest complaint about the "over engineered" HKs and SIGs. This is partly because they tend to be DA/SA, but that's not as much as an excuse as some like to think.
Then there are the striker guns, which rely solely on the recoil spring and slide mass for operation. They are cheap to make, work best with polymer frames, and aren't exactly functional elegance IMO.
To tie that to the topic at hand, the 92 is more in the 1911 camp than the SIG camp, if memory serves me correctly (been a little while since I played with one). Which is why they are competitive in durability with the 226 and other aluminum frame guns with simple coil wire RSs, where the SIGs need something a touch more sophisticated.
YMMV, just an opinion, etc
What's all this spring stuff got to do with a Brig Tac ???
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