Spring Gun Tuning

[Steve1]

Morning fella's just passing through

If you want to give you're spring a quick, thorough cleaning then you can follow the following[small] guide, heres what I do. First, you need an un-used toothbrush, the longer the better but it does not matter as long as it's unused. Two might be better, as you will see later.

Of course, it is better to work outside, but prepare a clean surface so the greased spring does not attract unwanted dirt or bits of sawdust, whatever may be around, you get the idea.

T-Cut Original or similar. The point here is not to shine, just to restore the surface of the spring, remove any grit and gunk. You could do the full polish with power-tools but I'm mostly speaking of general once-every-so-often maintanence, not power cleaning a really old spring which needs more care

If you have two brushes you can use one to apply the T-Cut evenly over the spring, and clean it throughly with the brush head. You could re-use this one later if you have an alcohol based cleaner to clean the brush.

Once any residual T-Cut is cleaned off the spring you can apply some grease of you're choosing to other brush, or re-use the other one. Apply a nice even amount, like a stripe across the brush head as though you are brushing you're teeth with it.
Now gently with the brush, stroke along the inner and outer length of the spring a few times, not too much or inevitabley you'll wipe it all off, again you get the idea. But be gentle you don't want to splatter it everywhere and spoil you're new wooden picture frame on the wall. This is much easier because theres an even amount of grease across the spring, a nice consistant layer and no sticky globs where you couldn't reach with your little finger. And only takes five mins'. Yee-haw

Also, as pointed out by Supermick, you could re-finish the ends of the spring where the spring guide and piston spacers meet in the cylinder. Although this would be better done beforehand, or you may be in a sticky situation with all the grease everywhere on the spring.

Thanks and good day/morning, happy shooting!

[matthu61]

Sounds a bit overdoing, why just not put the spring in a bucket of thinner. All grease and residue will come out in no time!

[franktheferret]

Fine, if you have a bath of thinners handy, but IPA is preferred, as it doesn't strip ALL oils from the metal, as thinners will do.

[danche]

Another good tip which I do to my spring guns, is to go to a hobby shop and buy some steel shim then cut it to fit inside the piston, get a steel washer to fit inside the piston. crimp the end of the shim, insert it into the piston, put the steel washer in, then insert the spring inside

What this does is to give extra smooth cocking, and also cuts the recoil down slightly, and makes the spring noise quieter. It's amazing the difference it makes

[danche]

Another quick tip for sping guns

Get some internal draft excluder, the foan one that goes around internal doors, take the action out of the stock and put some of the excluder every where the action touches the stock, and fit the action back

It makes a little shock absorber between the action and the stock