[Walt Sherrill]

Re: break-in period for a recoil spring...

All coil springs take a "set" with use. You could accelerate it by keeping it locked open, but I don't know that you're really doing anything positive by doing that -- as the recoil spring will shorten (normally, automatically) a bit with use, and it doesn't usually take that much time. You might notice it being a little easier to rack the slide as that happens. That "set" is considered by the gun's designers, so having it happen is not an issue.

We've had a bunch of discussions on springs here on the forum, with good input from engineer familiar with metallurgy who researched the topic for us; a forum search might answer most of the questions you could have about spring function and spring life.

The same issues arise with magazine springs. Flat springs have similar issues, but because the "work" area of flat springs tends to be concentrated to a general (and relatively small) area, while coil springs spread the "work" over more of the spring's material, the normal degradation with time shows up differently in these two spring types. Many magazine springs are hybrids, using both flat expanses of metal and coils on the ends of each flat length -- but they tend to degrade like coil springs. Except for very compact guns, or guns using hi-cap mags, spring life isn't generally an issue for most shooters.

As noted above, accelerating the "set" of that recoil spring will likely make it slightly easier to rack the slide, but I don't know what else you'll gain from doing that, and it's very unlikely you'll notice a great difference while firing the gun. The main function of a recoil spring, despite it's name, is not to manage recoil, but to close the action after loading the next round.

If the spring is strong enough to close the slide, the gun will continue to run; lighter springs almost never lead to damage of the gun -- but they do affect the experience of recoil (i.e., for the shooter, the force of the recoil is "spread"/experienced slightly differently over time, depending on whether a light or heavy recoil spring is used.)

An oversimplified statement: if the recoil spring is too light, the slide won't have enough force to fully chamber the next round; if it's too heavy, the slide won't go back far enough to pick up the next round. Between those two extremes -- too light and too heavy -- is a wide operating range hat will allow the gun to function properly. (I"ve got some guns that will run the same (relatively light) rounds properly when using a 12 lb recoil spring and a 22 lb. recoil spring...)

I neglected to answer your original question the first time through: if the gun won't function now, and it's the proper spring, leaving the slide locked back for a couple of days might weaken it a bit -- so that it works properly. You might be better served by asking this same question on the RUGER Forum, where I suspect others have had similar issues -- and get some solutions there.

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