Sometimes the Spring Ain’t Right

A 1911 .22 Cal conversion unit can be a great choice for your .22 cal gun for several reasons but not all of us have had good experiences with this equipment choice. These guns either run very well or have a long history of issues. I would like to share an experience I had in hopes that it might save some of you a lot of time and headache should you encounter similar issues. Keep in mind that I still feel a 1911 .22 conversion is a great choice. I own two. I’ve had my fair share of issues. But when these guns work, they work very well. And we CAN get them to work.

I purchased a Nelson 1911 .22 Cal conversion unit in 2017 I believe it was. I bought it used. I parted out a Springfield Range Officer to use as the dedicated lower for the Nelson. It ran very well for a good while. I had some issues later on around 2022 I think it was. It was short cycling and not picking up a cartridge off the magazine. Why was it running slow? Where is the energy getting sucked up at?

I chased ideas that it could be a worn out recoil spring, bad magazines, bad ammo, a bur somewhere, dirty chamber, damaged chamber, but ultimately this gun left us scratching our heads.

At Perry this year I took the complete gun to Kevin and Larry Nelson at their booth on commercial row. It didn’t take Kevin all but two minutes to ask me what weight hammer spring was in the gun. 18# I replied. He shook his head and said no way. Placing my gun down, he handed me one of his and says “this has a 22# hammer spring. Rock the hammer back and forth.” I did so and it felt no different than my own piece of equipment. Then he hands me another gun of his. “Do the same with this one.” I did as instructed and the hammer was noticeably easier to manipulate. He said “THAT is a 19# spring.”

So we replaced the hammer spring in my gun right then and there. I took the gun to the function range and dumped a box of ammunition through it. Came home and dumped another 100 rounds through it. Not a single malfunction. I was using an 8# recoil spring. I changed it to 9#. It still runs great.

The spring I bought from Kevin, that he installed at Perry, was an ISMI 19# hammer spring. The sprig I had in the gun when the gun was malfunctioning was supposed to be an 18# hammer spring from Wolff. I bought that spring through Brownells. Note: I don’t blame Brownells.

After telling this story to a handful of people I know and trust who build and work on 1911 pistols, they confirmed that it isn’t all that uncommon for Wolff to mislabel or miss-load a package with a spring. So if you buy one it might be right.. or it might be a different weight spring than what the package says. This isn’t to say Wolff makes a bad spring. It’s a good spring. But apparently, sometimes you get the wrong one.

So to sum this all up.. if you’re having issues.. and you might’ve replaced your hammer spring sometime around when the issues started happening.. try replacing the spring with another new spring. Just to see… if it’s a Wolff it might be right. Or.. it might be wrong. I carried that old spring of mine to the shop. Had it tested. It came in between 22 and 23 pounds. It came out of a package labeled 18#. Go figure.

So many blame the recoil springs , when it’s the mainspring causing the problems.

I made up test jigs to check that, same for recoil springs. Watch your eyes when testing.

Tim, I just had the same exact experience, probably within hours of yours.  Conversion couldn't be made to run for years.  Tried everything, even had others with conversions try to figure it out.  I also took it to Kevin at Perry this year and he felt a "catch" when working the hammer back and forth.  He thought the hammer's safety spur was hitting the sear when hammer dropped but it turned out to be the hole in the mainspring housing.  It looked like it had been bored out with a wood working hand auger. This is a Wilson Combat lower by the way so very surprised by that.  Kevin cleaned it up as best he could and we put what we thought was a 19 lb mainspring in.  We left the 9lb recoil spring in.  I went to the range and it was worse.  Way worse.  Light strikes and failures to chamber the next round about 80% of the time.  And to clarify, I wasn't sure what the original mainspring was and the 19 lb we put in was Kevin's, so it's relative value comapred to mine might be off a little due to different measuring equipment.

Took it back to Kevin and all we did was put a Wollfe 20.5 lb mainspring in it.  I had previously measured all my 1911 springs using a commercial Point of Sale scale that measures to two deciimals.  Pretty accurate so that's why the 20.5 lb spring value.  Wen't back to the range and fired 139 shots (all I had with me) without a hint of a problem.  Voila!

So here's what I learned and you just expressed.  Springs are not what the packages say they are.  We have to be able to measure our springs to be able to evaluate issues and make incremental adjustments.  Don't know if Wollfe is any different than the others but would be interested to know. 

In addition to the spring values, and many know this already, the magazines can push the ejector up into the slide on some frames.  Doug Hall has mag releases that he machines some material away to eliminate that issue if you have it.  Others just simply file away some plastic at the top of the catch hole in the magazine. 

Better late than never but sure wish I had known this much sooner.  Thanks for sharing.

Dan L.

Also know the radius on the firing pin stop will affect function as well.

A recommendation for those with conversions, once it is running, record the spring details (weight, uncompressed length, ect.) If at a later date you have a problem, you have baseline values to work from.

Can you point me to a simple scheme to measure spring rate on recoil and main springs?

paulj wrote:Can you point me to a simple scheme to measure spring rate on recoil and main springs?

You can search out " 1911 spring tester" and find premade kits that use a digital scale to measure the spring force at a certain compressed length. 

https://www.brownells.com/tools-cleaning/gun-tools/handgun-tools/govt-length-1911-recoil-spring-tester/

Fairly simple tool can be easily made too.

paulj wrote:Can you point me to a simple scheme to measure spring rate on recoil and main springs?

https://www.bullseyeforum.net/t17710-1911-spring-tester
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Other times it is not the spring. The nelson units have a good reputation, the non-nelson unit I had was an object of hate, derision, and scorn.  Changing springs did not help, and I systematically tested the whole matrix of spring combinations, among other things.

A dedicated rim-fire gun made by one manufacturer should have less tolerance stacking problems than a upper, lower, and magazines made by 2-3 different manufacturers.

paulj wrote:Can you point me to a simple scheme to measure spring rate on recoil and main springs?

https://store.securefirearmproducts.com/product_info.php?products_id=87