SP101 springs

[les45]

Just bought a used SP101 (factory spurless 321XL) from a lady shooter this past weekend. She had had the springs replaced and it did feel really nice. Since I was looking for a gun for my wife (she has a hard time with my bigger revolvers and semiautos) I figured that the softer smoother action would be perfect for her. Well I took it to the range yesterday and had two FTF in the first fifty rounds. The firing pin made dents but they didn't go off. Both rounds fired the second time around. I was using Winchester white box 38 special loads and I have never (ever) had a failure of these loads in my revolvers. Also the trigger did not return fast enough during rapid fire exercises and I felt it hinder a couple of shots. I'm not sure what kind of spring kit she used, but both springs were definitely lighter than stock. Anyway, she had left the stock springs in the box so I put them back in today. Definitely makes the action a little tighter, but I believe it will be more reliable as a self defense gun. Rapid dry fire could not reproduce the spring return problem either. Just throwing this out there for what it's worth. Sometimes better isn't better.

 

[Pal Val]

Seems like someone changed the springs without doing any smoothing and polishing in the action. That's like changing the oil filter and leaving the old oil in the motor.
I changed the springs in an SP101 a few years back soon after I bought it. While I had the gun disassembled, I polished all the bearing surfaces and got rid of a few rough spots in the action, including a nasty "knife edge" in the side of the trigger. Didn't touch the sear contact areas. This, and the Wolff springs, lightened the action significantly, and the gun has had no FTF.
Problem is that I let my wife shoot it, and she now "owns" it.

 

[s4s4u]

I tried a few hammer springs in mine and the 9#er did the same, light strikes. Kept the return spring factory. So far with a 10# hammer spring it has gone bang every time.

 

[les45]

When I had it apart I could tell that the internals had not been worked on although I didn't see any obvious burrs, rough spots, etc. This was my first time taking a Ruger apart so I wasn't ready to take on the trigger assembly. I plan to do that though as soon as I do some more research on the forums and on YouTube.

 

[louiethelump]

What you experienced is actually pretty common. When I was armorer-ing on a regular basis, putting factory springs back in a variety of guns that were home gunsmithed by folks putting light springs in was pretty common, as was re-assembling Ruger 22 auto pistols. We used to call them "brother in law" guns as the owner would never admit that he took it apart and could not get it back together. It was always a relative that did it. I cannot tell you how many after market S&W mainsprings I threw in the trash as well. It is not just Rugers.

I notice that the gun you had the issue with was a bobbed hammer model. I have one of those, and due to a lighter upper hammer (due to the spur not being there) they are more sensitive to misfires with light springs. You want a defense gun to be 100% reliable so make sure it WORKS as a primary goal. OF course you know that.

 

[berettapistols]

http://www.teslamap.com/public/sp101_trigger_job/index.html
http://gunner777.wordpress.com/2008/08/24/ruger-gp100sp101book-of-knowledge/

 

[TreeDoc]

Changed my spring at first, (very easy to do) and while the gun was open, did a light smoothing job. Dry fired gun, then put about 300 rounds down the pipe. Since this was a defensive tool not a range toy, I opened it back up, cleaned a little more and put the factory 14 back in. Gun has smoothed up nicely. Gun is a sp 101 DAO