Krag Spring Compression Weights

[Century2]

Dwelling on it overnight, I considered the variables. How did they come up with 22#? Why is their spring 32 coils, a heavier wire, and shorter than 5 inches long? Steels have improved in last 100 years? CHECK. This is the material in stock for their many other springs? LIKELY. I do think I discovered where there determinations went astray. 25 years ago, the armory spec for the weight of the main spring was not knowledge as common as it is today and they likely studied a relaxed original (most of my better Krag main springs are over 5 inches long - Does anyone know what the length of an unrelaxed original Krag main spring was supposed to be?). I found a spring calculator online and input all the original vital statistics (used 5.125 length) and picked the option for the lowest grade steel offered the weight of the spring came out to be 21.5# (too strong). I suspect Wolff did the same analysis and then produced a seeming equivalent with the materials they have on hand. Since spring force likely varies with amount of precompression, determining equivalents should be done with the spring in a pre-compressed state I also suspect that the number of coils comes into play in this regard. I did not mention to Dave and he most likely has no idea that there are new barrels available for the US Krags and that more people today may be more interested in the performance on these ancient actions than there were 25 years ago. This is one case where sending your feedback back to the factory would likely lead to the availability of a better product.