Which Spring is best? 17#, 18#, 19#, 20#??

[BeardedSailor]

I went with the 18# hammer spring/22# recoil spring. No problems...yet, but never say never. I will say I used a vice from my workshop to hold the assembly while disengaging and engaging the pressure of the hammer spring. One major piece of advice. Light. Use lots and lots of light. That is one small hole you are trying to get the paperclip through, especially when you can't see it, your finger hurts from pushing and your patience is getting thin. Not knowing when or if my firing pin spring was changed, I may have to take a breath and change it out soon. If it is a 1974 spring, it's more than time. Has anyone advice about the 20# recoil spring?

[robhic]

Agreed, light is your friend! Advice on the 20# spring as in how? You are using the 22# spring now. Why? I'd say the say reasoning for the 22 could apply to the 20. I put new 18# (original weight) springs in when I refurbished my pistols. Had one that stuck out of battery time to time. I put the 20# spring in that one to give it a bit more power to close the slide. It worked. That's my reason but I don't know why any other advice would be pertinent....

[cobber]

My 1967 has a new 18# hammer spring and 22# recoil. Firing Wolf, Brown Bear and Hornady CD. No glitches or light strikes yet.

(Can't say the same for my FEG PA63; put in the lightest Wolff hammer spring and nothing but light strikes. Wow.)

[poop_log]

Just got back from the range using a P-64 built in 1969 (round hammer) that had a 22lb Recoil Spring (Wolff) and 18lb Hammer Spring (Wolff) installed and had no issues whatsoever. The firing pin spring was the original that came with the gun. NOTE: I sanded each end of the 22lb Recoil Spring flat by hand with some sandpaper prior to use.

I found that the 18lb Hammer Spring made the single action too light so I will be swapping it out for a 19lb hammer spring. Hopefully that will give a little more resistance than the 18lb which provides virtually none. If not, I will step it up to the 20lb.

I shot with the 22lb Recoil Spring and the original one that came with the pistol. I did notice a difference between the two and the 22lb did provide less felt recoil. The P-64 is still a snappy shooter even with the 22lb Recoil Spring installed.

[poop_log]

Just a warning, if your new recoil spring has so much tension that you have a difficult time getting the slide on the slide rails, guide it back over the barrel and do not let it slam back onto the breech/barrel if possible. If you do not, the extractor will really do a number on your breech. My breech is all dented up and brass goes flying all over the place now.

I followed instructions from sooch00's video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRhMnRs6Gi0) but he never said to sand/grind each end of the Wolff recoil spring flat. So, there was too much tension on the spring so I had difficulty trying to get the slide over the barrel. Therefore, the slide kept flinging back and the extractor dented up the breech in the process.

FWIW, I used the 22lb recoil spring.