Originally Posted by Semisane

Fellow forum member lastoftheloaners and I have been exchanging PT's on an issue that I thought I would throw out for discussion.

We both have basically the same gun - TC Renegades with .45 caliber Green Mountain 1:30 twist LRH barrels. My barrel is blue. His is stainless.

We're using the same bullet, Ed Mehlig's 465 grain soft lead conical sized to .451 by Ed. Lastoftheloaner's barrel is clearly a bit tighter than mine. The bullet is a hard thumb start in my barrel. He finds it necessary to use a short starter. The load is 85 grains GOEX (FFFg for me and FFg for him). My load chronographs at 1400 fps. He has not shot his load over a chronograph.

I've never had hammer reset with that load and while recoil is noticeable, it's not horrible.

I suggested nipple erosion might be the problem, but his nipple is the one that came on the barrel from GM and has been shot only about 50 times. I have something like 800 shots out of mine.

He's of the opinion that the lock spring has weakened and needs to be replaced, or perhaps was always on the weak side but it didn't show up until he tried these conicals.

Although I've seen a few statements on various forums regarding the possibility of a weakened mainspring, I've always figured that was with traditional flat springs, not the type of coil in TC locks. I have five TC's. Most of them have seen something in excess of 1,000 shots, and have never experienced a weakened spring.

What say you? Have you had actual experience with a TC spring becoming weakened to the extent that it needed to be replaced?