So I had an awful time at the range today shooting my beloved P229R. At the 50 yard line, shots were way low and right, and a few just weird fliers. I even got scolded by an RSO for hitting the target frame, which has never happened before. It was shooting great last week at the 25 yard line, and should have been OK at the 50 with the proper holdover.

So I stripped it down as soon as I got home. What's Wrong with this Picture?


Broken Recoil Spring - 1 by kpkina, on Flickr

(My question is has this ever happened to you, and if so, what effect did it have on how the gun shot?)

Have never had the happen to any of my Sigs but none of them have worm holes in the slide.
Is your slide factory or aftermarket and how big is the guide rod opening in the slide and the guide rod clearance.

Never run into it on a 229 but i have on 226’s where the hole in the slide of the 226-40/357 gun was larger then the 226-9mm slide. Only way i ever noticed is i had Lasermax guide rod lasers for a 9mm and one for a 40/357 and the 40/357 LM would not fit into the 9mm slide as the guide rod slide hole dia was smaller then then the 40/357 slide hole. I have never seen anyone else reference this difference before but when you put the 9mm LM in the 40-357 slide the spring end was able to escape through.

Hey, cool! You've got one of the 2-piece nested springs!

In all seriousness, wow...no. Through tens of thousands of rounds through various classic P series SIGs, I have never experienced or seen a twisted strand spring break like that.

It's interesting to read the gun continued to function, presumably with no malfunctions, but that the broken spring affected accuracy.

I'm wondering if spring binding or max. compression was occuring, prior to the break?

Do you replace recoil springs per the maintenance schedule?

How many rounds were on this recoil spring?

Was the spring relatively straight or was it starting to take on a bend?

Had you noticed any spring strand 'walking' prior to this break?

Any difficulty removing the slide from the frame?

It's a factory slide (w/aftermarket porting obviously), barrel, and recoil spring. It does have an aftermarket guide-rod, but I've used it forever with no problems.

It's interesting to read the gun continued to function, presumably with no malfunctions, but that the broken spring affected accuracy. No operating malfunctions whatsoever.

Do you replace recoil springs per the maintenance schedule? It probably was around replacement time.

How many rounds were on this recoil spring? Probably around 5k rounds.

Had you noticed any spring strand 'walking' prior to this break? No.

Any difficulty removing the slide from the frame? None at all.

I do have the replacement parts kit. Reckon it's time to replace all the springs.

Glad it didn't cause any bigger problems for you and thanks for posting this issue. One more thing to file away in memory for T/Sing accuracy problems.

quote:

Originally posted by Mustang-PaPa:


Never run into it on a 229 but i have on 226’s where the hole in the slide of the 226-40/357 gun was larger then the 226-9mm slide. Only way i ever noticed is i had Lasermax guide rod lasers for a 9mm and one for a 40/357 and the 40/357 LM would not fit into the 9mm slide as the guide rod slide hole dia was smaller then then the 40/357 slide hole. I have never seen anyone else reference this difference before but when you put the 9mm LM in the 40-357 slide the spring end was able to escape through.

I've never owned a P229 chambered in 9mm, only . 357/ .40. I have owned various P226 in all three calibers. I've never taken the time to measure the slide Guide Rod tunnel hole, but I've owned several in which the factory guide rod was perfectly centered and filled the hole, and one or two in which the Guide Rod was ever so slightly off-center and left a tiny gap to one side of the hole where I could see a tiny portion of the Recoil Spring, even when in battery.

I wasn't happy about it, but it never caused any stoppages so I didn't fret about it.

The one Bedair Guide Rod I had did a great job of staying centered and fully filling the hole.

I had one P226 milled slide in which the portion of metal dividing the Guide Rod tunnel from the Barrel channel was noticeably uneven and jagged, and while it never caused any stoppages I always wondered if it might cause future problems with the Recoil Spring when it started to wear in, but I ended up selling the gun before it started getting into extended round counts.

Cutting unnecessary holes in the slide = reduced slide mass = increased slide velocity = excessive parts wear.

Point taken, but the lightening slots in the slide were primarily for that, lightening the slide. I missed the perfect balance of my 228, but found that the front of the slide could be effectively lightened. In fact it did then balance perfectly, but now I missed the recoil resistance of the formerly front-heavy slide (dang, just can't please some people!).

At that point I elected for actual porting, which works perfectly to snap the muzzle back down. So best of both worlds now, the balance of a 228, and the flip-resistance of a 229.

The recoil spring was at or past the replacement point as far as rounds fired, so I'm not really disappointed per se.

Dang, though, as soon as I solve one thing, something else pops up. Can't remove the grip screws on the right side (I'm not the last person to install them). I don't want to twist too much, as I know that the grip screws are designed to sacrificially break away rather than damage the frame threads. Then it all has to be drilled out. Guess I'll leave it for now.

quote:

Originally posted by kkina:
It does have an aftermarket guide-rod

quote:

Originally posted by kkina:
The one Bedair Guide Rod I had did a great job of staying centered

Can you let us all know: What is the brand of the guide rod in the photo? Is that your Bedair?

Also, this is a really interesting post, as I've always understood part of the philosophy behind braided springs is that they will not just snap into two pieces, since there are multiple wires that would need to break in the same place. Maybe that's just a myth? Or is this just a freak incident?

Thank your sharing your experience. Cheers

Sorry, I don't seem to remember where that guide rod came from. If I run across something, I'll post it.

quote:

Also, this is a really interesting post, as I've always understood part of the philosophy behind braided springs is that they will not just snap into two pieces, since there are multiple wires that would need to break in the same place. Maybe that's just a myth? Or is this just a freak incident?

I know, right? My guess is that one of the strands broke, increasing stress on the good strand until it too separated.

I'm just wondering how many rounds did that spring have on it?

As I noted above, I don't have the exact count, but it was over 5,000. The replacement spec from Sig is 5,000.

You can grate some serious parmigiano Reggiano cheese with that slide Brother

Spring surprise for sure.
Check your locking block for cracks.

Memories of 12131's P228 not only nickel but had a cool s/n.

https://sigforum.com/eve/forum...935/m/5690009254/p/6

.

Thank you. Locking block looks fine.