M14 Forum

casebro

I can hardly force the ammo into my mag. So much tension that I can;t get the first round in with out pushing it with the second round. Second round impossible. It's my 'parts gun' mongrel, see the Trapper thread.

I did find some info on the interwebs that stated 3" longer than the tube. Seems that guy had a spring about 40" long. Cheaper by the mile, eh? Probably a universal replacement, cut to length?

But even stretching and trimming didn't work. That spring was .050 wire. So I tried another spring, a 'pull' rather than a 'push' spring. It was only .035" wire. So I stretched it out, making it a compression spring, Seemed to work OK, but once I stuffed it with 5 rounds, it lost tension, got re-compressed, didn't feed the fifth round out. So I re-stretched, and re-assembled. I think it will work if I only load 2-3. Good enough for a function check trip to the range.

But, anybody know specs for proper spring? Wire size, number of coils? Or inches of length, and coil spacing? Anybody gat a spare lying around to measure/count?

SOCOM42

Sounds like you have another problem other than the spring.

Is the mag tube bent or dented under the wood?

You might be fighting the follower getting it over deformation.

casebro

Nah, everything ahead of the receiver is brand new. Just the wrong spring, and the brand new crispness of the gun- it is a 1971 with less than a box through it. Newest gun I've ever owned. I've never had to 'break in' a gun before.

But parts were 'lost' by a different shade tree gun plumber. Hence the new replacement parts, and the lack of old parts to compare.

The "different shade tree gun plumber" had one of the brain diseases (parkinsons? ) last I heard. I bought back some of my own parts while he sat at a gun show helping out my brother who was dying of pancreas cancer. He didn't remember where they came from, but swore my gun didn't have them when he got it from me. A couple years later I learned of the Parkinson's. I hope he is gone by now, not melting away in a rest home.