doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Sidelock V springs

The direct human experience with load bearing is muscle force. When loaded, muscles grow tired. Steel is different. Up to very near the yield point, steel is indifferent to the load carried and the time it is loaded. A steel beam experiences the same fundamental stress/strain relations as does a spring. We don't expect steel structures to sag over time and there is no method used to periodically give beams a "rest". Locking lever springs are unloaded most of the time, yet they do break.

Every spring, handmade or manufactured, is blessed with a finite number of cycles at full deflection. The lower the deflection per cycle the more cycles above the minimum to failure. Unfortunately, there is no way to predict on an individual basis the number of cycles to failure; there are too many unknowable factors.

There is no magic in coil springs as compared to V springs. I'll venture that there was a lot more "cut and try" in V spring design than engineering. Coil springs, on the other hand, have tended to be carefully designed, made in factories with tight quality control, and carefully developed standards. Whereas V springs are handmade one-offs specific to an individual gun, modern gun designers select from a plethora of available coil springs.

DDA

Thanks, DDA. Science is better than intuitive notions, right or wrong.

King, are you telling us that your intuitive notions that Jim was the cause of the closing of Misfires... when he hadn't even been posting in Misfires for several months... were wrong? That bizarre accusation yesterday was especially surprising since we had the science behind it. Dave W. specifically told us his reasons.

Thanks.

I suspect coil springs might have tight quality controls, but many of them seem to be prone to mass production quality issues probably to meet some price point. While not good gun v springs, there're still many applications for leaf springs that're likely just as engineered.

While not mass production, I thought of the posting that showed the Purdy v spring, seemingly being made on a small production basis, rather than one off hand made. Only an observation is all Rocketman.

coil springs by nature are easier to manufacture consistently than V springs.

A well made V spring is excellent, but any grind marks can become dress points. Either spring can fail, but I feel a V spring had more variables to account for.