[SlideLock]

I'm comparing a Wolff mainspring and a mainspring from Robert Burke, The Sig Armorer. As I understand it, Robert's mainspring is a Wolff mainspring that he has polished. I can see the ends of his mainspring are smoother. My questions:

How much difference will polishing the mainspring make to hammer pull and to wear?

Can I do the polishing myself with some sandpaper or a Dremel?

 

[Willard]

I'm comparing a Wolff mainspring and a mainspring from Robert Burke, The Sig Armorer. As I understand it, Robert's mainspring is a Wolff mainspring that he has polished. I can see the ends of his mainspring are smoother. My questions:

How much difference will polishing the mainspring make to hammer pull and to wear?

Can I do the polishing myself with some sandpaper or a Dremel?

I'm not sure how Robert does it, possibly a tumbler and media... the use of a Dremel would possibly result in "thinned" spots, where you could access, which would be weaker, the same with sandpaper.

Visualize the "round" wire stock used, while maintaining it's roundness, it would result in even tension, regardless of slight differences in angle of compression. When springs are "wound" they are "clamped" into position, this process may remove minor distortions in the wire itself. We all know, it's not Magic!

The only "difference" I could actually foresee, would be evenness of compression which may make the pull seem smoother, but can't see any anti-wear potential.

 

[SlideLock]

Hey Willard,

Thanks very much for your reply. Visually, I can only see that ends of Robert's springs look somewhat smoother. They feel smoother. I can't detect any difference in the springs, other than the ends.

More than that, it doesn't look like Robert changed the edges of the ends -- just polished a bit. In other words, it looks to me like they just the ends were polished with something flat or nearly flat. If he used something like a wire wheel, I cannot see that.

I'm stretching the limits of my camera, but I've taken 3 pictures. In each of the pictures, Robert's spring is on the left. The unaltered Wolff spring is on the right.

 

[Slowmo]

Worthwhile questions. At some service point, we’ll need to replace the TSA spring and I’m not sure what I’d buy and / or if Robert plans to sell the springs alone.

My priority would be to maintain the spring weight that he spec’d. I may be wrong but I assume that the smoothness might be more attributed to the strut’s finish & geometry?

 

[Willard]

Hey Willard,

Thanks very much for your reply. Visually, I can only see that ends of Robert's springs look somewhat smoother. They feel smoother. I can't detect any difference in the springs, other than the ends.

More than that, it doesn't look like Robert changed the edges of the ends -- just polished a bit. In other words, it looks to me like they just the ends were polished with something flat or nearly flat. If he used something like a wire wheel, I cannot see that.

I'm stretching the limits of my camera, but I've taken 3 pictures. In each of the pictures, Robert's spring is on the left. The unaltered Wolff spring is on the right.

I know he has a Surface Grinder in his shop, that he used in a video to "square up" his material removal in fitting a barrel. The only difference between "grinding" and "polishing" is the grit of the abrasive.

Smoothing the ends as such, would allow the springs to "rotate" between the seats and the struts too. That was one of his efforts when developing the Super Struts, is to have straight and equal compression, so not to "bow" the spring, which the flat bases of the springs supply.

 

[Willard]

Worthwhile questions. At some service point, we’ll need to replace the TSA spring and I’m not sure what I’d buy and / or if Robert plans to sell the springs alone.

My priority would be to maintain the spring weight that he spec’d. I may be wrong but I assume that the smoothness might be more attributed to the strut’s finish & geometry?

Slowmo, from my perspective...

The Super Struts geometry is said to apply even compression to the spring, to prevent "bowing", the edges of the strut are beveled, but with the stamped nature of the OEM struts, allowed the unfinished edges to actually make contact with the inside of the springs coils, and they actually were like small "saws" cutting into the coils of the spring. That's what I recognized when I started beveling the edges of my OEM struts, before Robert came out with his Super Struts. I swear, I could feel the grittiness of the struts. You could examine the struts, and see the wear along the rough edges, on older struts. That's why in most cases, I removed the old "pinned" Mainspring assemblies from my German Sigs, as even the struts "rubbing" the metal seats, caused some friction, and resistance. The later nylon/plastic seats, while possibly making contact with the struts, didn't provide that metal to metal contact.

Robert possibly hasn't considered marketing the springs individually, but he likely would if asked...

 

[Slowmo]

I agree. After converting my W German 226 to an E2 strut assembly, I had a gritty pull. That said, I didn’t realize it until I bought a new 220 that was much smoother. One of your earlier posts then prompted me to lightly smooth the 226 strut’s lower edges and the grittiness was noticeably absent. When I later added Robert’s SS, I do think there was some added benefit but it is less incremental and hard to pinpoint the cause (spring weight, spring polishing, strut geometry, etc).

I like the current setup and would replicate it if I bought another P series. And if Robert is willing to sell replacement springs, I’d probably buy from him.

 

[SlideLock]

I took some 280 grit sandpaper to the two ends of a Wolff 20-pound mainspring. I'd guess a minute on each end. I also lightly sanded the inside edge of the last coil on each end for maybe 15 seconds. To my eye, this spring looks about the same as the mainsprings I've gotten from Robert Burke. Better still, it feels the same to me.

 

[sigb]

I took some 280 grit sandpaper to the two ends of a Wolff 20-pound mainspring. I'd guess a minute on each end. I also lightly sanded the inside edge of the last coil on each end for maybe 15 seconds. To my eye, this spring looks about the same as the mainsprings I've gotten from Robert Burke. Better still, it feels the same to me.

This is a good technique and does have some benefit and is something that LTT does on the Beretta 92.

If you end up with the hammer spring rotating it definitely makes a difference because now the rotating part has been smoothed.

While some people have seen benefit in changing struts and polishing and using the super strut etc. I have not found much benefit in messing with the strut in a hammer fire gun. Wow some people have seen benefit in changing struts and polishing and using the super strut etc. I have not found much benefit in messing with the strut in a hammer fired gun. Do I always polish the strut and now the ends of the spring also? Yes, but mostly out of habit. I do think some people end up with problems in the strut area and are able to fix it with something else but I guess I just have not found that type of problem yet in any CZ or SIG that I have tuned.

Once, I had a CZ that had a strut that was considerably chewed up and looked like monkeys had machined it. It had a gritty trigger so I carefully polished the strut. There was no difference and all the grittiness remained.