Hi to all, a lot of what makes a spring live is covered in the design, and the quality of materials? If a spring is design to work at max load and full compression every time, it will eventually, and continually weaken and sooner or later break?... The initial loss of length is called taking a set, and all coil springs do this to some extent. On the other hand, a spring that always operates in the middle of its work range will last for thousands of cycles, maybe even tens of thousands of cycles... But, Luger coil springs do not enjoy that luxury! Especially the main spring and extractor spring.... The Luger springs were engineered to fit a specific space to address a certain work load that was/is close to max performance demands with every cycle... It would be an interesting experiment to put in a new spring, and measure it at 0 rounds, 10 rounds, 100 rounds, and 1000rounds... any significant change in length after 1000 rounds would probably dictate a change is needed... I know that the tape test is good for calibrating loads, but it doesn't really tell you witch is the culprit/ I find that a Luger with a weak or failing mainspring will not close consistently on the following round?.. New mainspring, and pow! Right back to normal function... best to all, til....lat'r.....GT ....
