Commander Spring weight with EGW firing pin stop

[JANIJ00]

I have a Colt Commander I use for IDPA and would like to get it shooting as smoothly as I can. I load 4.9 grs of WST over a 200 gr SWC.

I have purchased an EGW square firing pin stop and I would like to hear recommendations on what size recoil spring I should use? Do you favor variable or conventional? Wolff or ISMI? What size mainspring should I use?

[Duane Thomas]

What's the power factor on that ammo? Factory standard for a Government Model 1911 .45 is either 16 or 17 pounds (depending on which book you read ), for a Commander it's 18 pounds. I run a 14-pound Wolff variable power recoil spring with 170 pf loads in my Government Models, and also with more heavily recoiling factory ammo, as well, and 15 pounds in a Commander. I very much prefer variable power springs over the conventional design, though opinions on that vary. Most people drop down to around 17 pounds on their mainspring weight, though I've gone down to 15 pounds with 100 percent ignition reliability - though it's fair to note that I run mostly Federal primers which are very easy to light off.

[ParaGunner]

+1 to what Duane said about spring weights

Also, with the square firing pin stop it will be very hard to rack the slide by hand which will make unloaded starts more difficult. I tried a square fps for a while and eventually went back to a normal radius fps. YMMV

[Duane Thomas]

I really don't see the need for a squared firing pin stop either. It's just going to create more felt recoil and muzzle flip.

[Anthony Lombardo]

The square bottom firing pin stop doesn't cause any more flip/recoil, in fact it will allow you to usually reliably run a lighter recoil spring. The flat bottom stop delays the unlocking by adding more mechanical resistance to the slide. Muzzle flip is caused by the slide hitting the frame. The square bottom stop slows slide velocity, thus should reduce flip.

Variable springs? Waste of time and money. The job of a recoil spring is to strip a round and push your barrel via the slide into a consistent locked position every time. The variable spring lessens your closing pressure. Not a good thing!

IMO-they are useful only for comp guns that already have delayed locking and are prone to short stroking with a conventional spring.

John Browning designed the gun with a flat bottom stop for a reason. It was changed by US Ordnance so soldiers could more easily rack the slide....they had to move to a heavier recoil spring to try and compensate...

If all you shoot are barely major loads at 170PF, a flat bottom stop is overkill. If you run hardball or +P with 8rd mags it will improve reliability. Guaranteed.

[hovbuild]

I don't shoot target loads very often because I enjoy pin shooting. I run some heavy weights and since installing a square bottom FPS my guns run smoother and I went down 2 lbs on my springs. Seems to help me but I am sure that shooting the regular ones there are advantages for some.