Reducing Winchester 1894 hammer spring power

[ovenpaa]

Does anyone have any experience of reducing the power of the Winchester 1894 hammer spring? Before everyone jumps up and says fit a low power coil spring I need to point out this is the flat type spring.

All of the internals are slicked now, rear of bolt polished, ramp on hammer blended and the helper spring fitted with spring backed off and contact face polished as is the contact area of the spring to hammer and all the other usual tweaks. The trigger itself is superb now as is the action with the hammer cocked it is just the cocking force that I would like to ease very slightly however not at the expense of potential light strikes.

Anyone?

[dodgyrog]

When I used to tune S&W revolvers in the good old days I used to grind down the edges of the main spring reducing the width to reduce the power of the spring thus lowering the 'pull' required on the trigger. You could try the technique.

[Sim G]

There are reduced power leaf springs available, but honestly, by the time you've paid postage and stuff, they may turn out to be expensive.

Two other methods are, first and easiest, place a small piece of leather between the spring and tang where they screw together. Skeeter Skelton and Elmer Keith both claimed it will give a lighter, "softer" trigger pull leaf springs on original Winchester and Colt revolvers. I did it to an Uberti 1851 Navy, yeah, I reckon it does.

The second is to take a file to the spring and reduce the width of the taper. Don't use a grinder or a dremel as too much heat and too much material can be removed too quickly. File off each side equally, trying the spring back in the rifle regularly. Make sure once you have the required weight and feel on the spring, polish off the file marks from the spring as it may fracture across from them when worked.

[ovenpaa]

Thank you both for your suggestions. I have reduced the width of Mosin Nagant trigger springs in the past so this action had already crossed my mind however I could not find anything on the subject to confirm this action.

SimG, I will also try the leather piece under the helper spring, I now have a lot of experience at removing and fitting the hammer now and can swap it out in couple of minutes now, unlike the first time....

[FredB]

Leaf springs are made from through hardening steel and can be filed down and polished without risk. HOWEVER: the maximum stress occurs in the top and bottom of the leaf and is a function of the thickness---for a given deflection, the stress increases as the leaf is made thicker. A wide, thin leaf will have lower surface stresses than a narrow thick one will for the same rate and deflection.
Hence, you should never file the edges of a leaf spring. File the top or bottom or both and then polish to remove file marks.
Fred

[1066]

If you reduce the spring and get light strikes you can always use pistol primers in pistol calibre cartridges.

[ovenpaa]

Fred, thank you for the advice on leaf springs, I will look at thinning it slightly. I am curious to see how much I have to reduce the thickness by to get to an ideal so I will build a small fixture to measure the spring poundage rates with and without the helper and then see how much it changes per .005" reduction of thickness of spring. A job for a weekend I think.

1066, good point!

[dodgyrog]

If you reduce the spring and get light strikes you can always use pistol primers in pistol calibre cartridges.

That only works if the spring is through hardened. The S&W springs were case hardened and polishing them caused them to weaken over time (a short time at that).

[FredB]

Interesting. I have thinned many S&W springs, starting with an early 20th century Triple Lock and ending with a 686. Never had a problem, but I acknowledge that it is possible to make springs by case hardening---perhaps S&W outsourced them?
I forgot to mention in the previous post that the spring stiffness is directly proportional to the width but is proportional to the third power of the thickness---you need to take less off to get the desired result if you go for the thickness.
Sorry for being boring---I used to design commercial vehicle leaf springs.
Fred

[ovenpaa]

Fred, not in the least bit boring. Is there a rule of thumb that can be applied for reduction of power versus reduction in thickness as a percentage? I ask because I am looking to reduce the power to halfway between with and without the helper spring as a starting point.