[Ramshackle]

Decided to try a little experiment so I took a steel Glock captured guide rod with a 13lb recoil spring (2 coils cut off) and installed it in my Steyr M9. Since the guide rod was for a 5" slide it stuck out quite a bit. Bottom line: although the Glock guide rod head is smaller and the rod is narrower than the Steyr, it worked flawlessly for the 100+ rounds I put through it. No light primer strikes -- and that's with hard CCI primers -- and no ejection problems. Because of the lighter spring or heavier guide rod (or both) the handling of the gun was noticeably different. The M9 shot flatter and it torqued much less. It was a major improvement. This is reinforcing my belief that the M9 may be oversprung. BTW, I imagine the gun would shoot even better with a tungsten guide rod.

This was an experiment on a range gun. I would NOT attempt this on a carry or service gun.

 

[Guest]

tag

this is very interesting. If you put quite a bit more into this, maybe you should contact Steyr with this and they can try this and see if it truely is an improvement. If it actually help people I'd jump in line and order a new one from steyr to help your numbers out.

 

[Shooter]

A good experimemt would be to get a Jackash guide rod made for the Steyr and get a lighter Wolffe spring and see what the difference would be.....

 

[Ramshackle]

The problem is that unless the guide rod shaft is thinned down on the Jack Ash rod (assuming it's the same dimenson as the original Steyr) a flat wire Glock spring won't fit. Since I only want to use a flat wire (not a round wire) spring like the original Steyr or Glock springs, I'd need a custom guide rod with a .490 head like the Steyr and a shaft of .224-.225.

 

[theFiasco]

Ramshackle,

Do you think removing a couple of coils from an original Steyr spring
would be similar to your 13# Glock spring? How difficult is it to cut
coils from the flat springs?

Thanks for the experiment,

-tF

 

[Ramshackle]

Thefiasco, it's not hard to cut coils from flat springs, although in round recoil springs it will shorten its life. The problem is that cutting coils won't really reduce the poundage of the spring. You need a lighter spring. Since Steyr parts are scarce, I won't mess with the original parts. Glock recoil springs are a dime a dozen.

 

[theFiasco]

Thanks. When the parts become available, looks like there's a lot
of little experiments that can be done. I'd really like to try
the new A1-series extractors and plungers on an M9.

 

[Shooter]

what's the difference for you in the flat/round spring experience??

 

[Ramshackle]

I don't really have much experience with flat v. round springs. Most of my experience is with 1911s. But, Glockaphiles whose knowledge/opinions I respect believe that the flat springs function better. I wouldn't hesitate to use a round spring if I had one.