Just tried something I've never done before on a springer.... and it worked !

[Dornfelderliebe]

Doesn't the square section spring sometimes damage the cylinder bore?

It digs out and hones it's own channel

[junglie]

Everyone will now be looking through the bits box, for they old ox springs or taking them off the gates. Atb mick

i've suggested on threads slagging them off that any haters send their unwanted ones to me & not had any takers yet......

[evert]

Interesting! What are the dimensions of the OX springs?
I have a few in my spring boxes, but have never measured them, just discarded them after removing them from guns they damaged...

[CapitalBee]

I've one in an fwb sport. Cropped back to produce sub12ft/lbs . It's a nice shooter.

[TonyL]

I've never been tempted to try one (other than one that I fitted for a friend many, many years ago) but might be a little less reluctant to now. I've never been against the short and stiff prescription, though.....many of my V-Mach kitted rifles have little preload, making them so simple to fit and shoot utterly superbly, as you'd expect. This might well shine a more favourable light on the thicker wired Titan ones, too?

[Papa g]

brace yourselves folks, this is a bit radical....

.. I just fitted an Ox spring to a gun. Deliberately. I knew exactly what it was, but I still put it in there... and it's shooting quite nicely

Full context.. building up an HW35, and the 3.2mm wire gauge longish spring was giving a pretty unpleasant cycle; 10 FP, but it felt slow, and slammy at the same time. Just not nice. I was pretty sure this was due to the fairly heavy piston (270g) and the large 30mm bore, making for excessively slow initial acceleration, which combined with the famously long port, made for similarly slow initial pressure build up.

So I needed a stiffer spring. Just didn't have anything in the selection (around 30 ) any stiffer than 3.2mm, except one monster I'm saving for my FAC 48... but there were a couple of Oxs. This one was about 3/4" shorter, and obviously stiffer, so in it went.

Result pretty much as expected; much faster firing cycle, less slammy, and power went up a fair bit too. Cocking effort wasn't obviously different, but in reality would have been more at the end of the stroke - where you have most leverage, hence I didn't notice it. Not fine tuned anything yet - need to get a stock and try it out for accuracy first - but hey, it seems everything has it's uses

I’ve used them in many guns, if you use common sense and don’t fit them into flimsy made guns and cut the springs to the correct length and finish them properly they can be very good especially in a short stroke gun, I have one in my HW35 and it too shoots lovely.
Regards Graham