American Eagle Early Main spring
 

I have one to restore but the main spring HAS NO WEENIES LEFT! This one has a replaced rear toggle cause somebody (not me) shot the gun with this weak main spring and CRACKED the rear toggle. The spring looks great but not too springy. Any way to recondition these? I have a 2000 Degrees F oven, but not the expertise with these yet, but I need to learn all I can. I figured (LugerDoc) might know! IT is a pity cause these mainspring are not easy to find.

I'm sure Tom Heller will chime in, but I do believe that he has repro "S" springs in stock. I thought that they were in the $30-$40 range.

Thor,

You should be able to get one of these from Tom Heller, new manufacture, no problem.

One thing to note when you do, the little "hooks" at the end which the recoil stirrup connects to are larger, thicker, and longer than the originals. when I first installed mine, the toggle would jam open, and it took me the longest time to figure out why.

Turns out the hook ends actually jammed up against the underside of the breechblock at fulll recoil, actually gouged it pretty good. Took some judicious filing on the ends until they were short enough to no longer make contact.

You will probably also note (and may have already, with other old-style guns), even the new-manufacture springs are pretty weak. My 1900 shooter likes wimpy Fiocci just fine, but anything stouter feels like its punishing the gun pretty hard.

--Dwight

Thank you Dwight that is darn good to know! Shooting the wimpy Fiocchi sure doesnt work well in most 1920 Commercials, especially ones with "9mm main spring" This AE has been punished hard because this spring doesnt even have the cojones (force) to load a round, much less close. I know on the flat sear springs they can be gentley bent then run through the fire blue process which relieves the internal stress from the bending and give it more spring.

Ted & all, I USED to sell these repro M1900 recoil springs at the above prices when I could still get them in quantity from GPC. Unfortunately, no longer available. I do have several original M1900 rear toggle links in stock and the connecting (S shaped) link, which is shorter than the standard PO8. If your spring is not cracked, you may want to check that you have the correct connecting link. TH

Well, I looked Tom and I DO have a good main spring(I mean no cracks and it looks good) and the proper short toggle link. I was going to take some pics but no batteries, yikes. I will reassemble the pistol now that I have the link working properly and see how much force the spring has.

Ted,
Back on 1/28/2003 Balder reported that his 1900 American Eagle had a small piece of metal wedged behind the mainspring, presumably to increase its strength. Dwight Gruber also said he had an old model that had a piece of wood wedged in a similar fashion. Perhaps one of them could provide a photo of this "fix", if indeed that is what it is.

Ron, no darn wonder they went to a better system. Dont most modern S&W Revolvers STILL use the flat leaf mainspring? I think Ruger uses the coil type? I know one thing, this reverse curved DWM spring aint that great an idea! Of course, I am sure they didnt design these to last over 100 yrs

Actually, the laminated double ribbon spring was an improvement over the single piece flat spring in that it allowed progressive "loading" of the spring tension and could be fine tuned to the action. However, I once had a 1900 AE, that had come up out of Mexico. It was in pretty good shape, but evidently the mainspring had broken and someone had rather crudely forged a one piece S-spring. You could still see the hammer and file marks! I never shot it with that spring (which I still have) but in working the toggle, it felt like my other 1900s. Some of those old guys could work wonders with limited tools.

Ron & Thor,

Sorry no photos of the wood wedge "fix", went the way of the old spring when I replaced it. Didn't really seem to make much difference in the working of the spring...

--Dwight

I put the spring and toggle back together and the action moves way way way better but the spring doesnt have enough "poop" to safely shoot it! What a pity this will be a stunning 1900 AE that will just be admired. Thanks to all for the help! I am sure one spring will surface but after seeing this one, I dont know if one call tell if they are strong enough until you put them in the gun.