Well, this is driving me nuts - the spring Protrek sent measures up as correct but boy does it seem too powerful for this little old Meteor. It's longer than the one in my 77K.

The breech seal they sent is a pretty poor/loose fit too.

I made up a slotted compression tool but even then it was most of my body effort to compress the thing enough to (finally, finally) get the rear action holding pin in...

But I don't like the idea of what seems like too much preload in a 60 year old junior gun.

But the next bit is defeating me (severely) at present - trying to get the barrel pivot pin in while also trying to get the detent/barrel lock up pin in. A pig of a design that seems to need three hands.

When I rebuilt it with the original spring (giving me around 4.5 ft lbs) I left the pin just in the outer fork, installed another correct size metal dowel in from the other side while keeping the whole thing together and pushing down on the detent pin so I could push the temporary dowel in against the detent flat (hope that makes sense) then leaving that dowel in while I knocked the main pin in.

But there is just too much pressure on everything now and it's impossible.

Beginning to think I should leave this happy little gun with the original spring as the extra 20mm spring length is causing no end of issues...and might just lead to too much strain and the barrel or linkage giving out.

Any advice chaps - I could heat and collapse a coil or two I guess but seems a shame on a new spring before I have even test fired the thing...