STI recoil master

[ErikW]

Shot my foo-foo gun today with a light RecoilMaster in it. Worked fine, but not a big change from the tungsten rod I had in it previously or the long steel rod I had in it before that. However, the gun seemed to run exceptionally smoothly. That may have been due to the Slide Glide Light. On the close hoser targets, I didn't feel the herky-jerkiness I often feel with my Open gun on those types of arrays.

[Scott G]

I broke my 4th RM a couple of weeks ago.  In the gun "fixed" at STI to accomodate the RM.  I'm back to a regular steel guide rod set-up for good.

[ErikW]

Four broken RMs is insane. Anybody think maybe the reason some RMs break and some don't is some kind of fitting issue? (Like the one described by scott on 9-19-02.)

[dvc40jim]

Scott,

    I would still encourage you to try one of the Sprinco setups.  With the 30 day money back gaurantee from the factory it is hard to go wrong.  You don't have to worry about the gun getting beat up, you can't break the system and you will be able to tell a differance right off the bat.

    Hands down, with all of the systems we tuned at the Desert Classic, every gun is running faster, and every shooter is shooting better.  We only found one pistol that was so poorly tuned that we couldnt set a system up to run in it, he was already using a 21 lb spring to get the gun to function.

    With the right spring setup for your gun, you will shoot flatter and faster and that is what we are all looking for when we start to play around.

[dvc40jim]

To all of those with broken Recoil Masters a question.

    We are doing a little market analysis, when the RM's break, where is the break occuring?  We would like to narrow down, short of the obvious heat treating errors, what is causing the system to fail.

    And just a reminder that the Sprinco system comes with a 30 day money back guarantee and a 1 year warranty on non spring parts.  Pretty hard to go wrong like that.

[ErikW]

dvc40jim do you sell RecoilMasters?

[Detlef]

o.k., guys, have we heard all the facts? It seems we are approaching a (marketing) situation with this thread that is explicitly "unwanted" on this forum. Anyone object to closing it (mail me)? 9 pages worth of this seems 'nuf said to me....

--Detlef

(Edited by Detlef at 7:33 am on Dec. 6, 2002)

[BamBam]

I was checking out a buddy's gun which just had an STI recoil master (light) installed.  He shot a hundred rounds or so, and it looks like the barrel feet are getting slammed and gouged by the back of the recoil rod assembly.  Pulling back his slide and mine, his with the recoil master feels Waaaaaaay lighter in resistance.  I have a normal rod with 10 pound progressive spring in mine.  So if the recoil master offers so much less overall resistance to slow the slide, then it would make sense to be smashing things inside the gun, right?

My point being, the idea of the STI-RM to have a light/heavy spring working together is the right direction.... but if the total resistance is so ridiculously under powered then what is the point?    There needs to be a light spring component for gentle slide lockup, and somewhere a heavy enough spring component to slow the slide at max rearward travel.  One without the other would be useless.  Has anyone else noticed this with their Open/light STI-RM?

The same way the STI-RM seems overall too light, the springco final spring seems too heavy.  Has anyone ever tried actually cutting two recoil springs (one light, one heavy) and putting them on the same normal guide rod with some kind of a washer in between?  

[BamBam]

Does anyone have any experience using an STI-RM in the light spring configuration in an open gun?  I have some concerns about the overall spring resistance being too light and posted about this in better detail to the "Springs" forum.   Please take a look.

[lynn jones]

bam bam,

did you look in this thread?

http://www.brianenos.com/cgi-bin/ikonboard...28&topic=52

lynn jones

[BamBam]

Yes - Lynn, been through those 9 pages.  But I am looking a little more specifically towards Open guns and the light STI-RM setup.  The prior page topic was more about the new invention and how everyone thinks they "feel", such as compared to a springco or tungsten rod.  

My concern is that the total resistance feels way too light and wanted to know about what normal spring weight that might equal (my guess is 7 lbs.) and if its so light why that would not be expected to damage the gun?  If a 10 pound spring is rather "normal" for open calss, wouldn;t the total resistance at max compression for the STI-RM need to be about the same, with the light/heavy spring technology aside?

[ErikW]

I put a light one in my Open gun recently. I don't think anything is getting hammered, but I'll keep an eye on it. I had a 10# normal spring in it before and it certainly feels lighter by hand but shooting there's little difference. Again it's a feel thing, and it doesn't provide as much change as with my Limited gun, which is very little to begin with.

That half-and-half spring setup won't work. You want it to compress the light one first then the heavier one, but it doesn't work that way, they both compress together.

I think the only way to accomplish the ideal (heavy resistance at near full-open, plenty of spring force to strip the round  from the magazine, but lightly closing) is with damping circuits, like a motorcycle fork or shock. Little or no compression damping to start, a lot at the end. Little or no rebound damping with the slide back, a lot as it closes. A few hundred bucks each.

[BamBam]

This topic and what I am hearing begs two further questions (its my Engineer side, so please bear with me):

1) If the total peak spring resistance of the STI-RM is only about 7 lbs (forgetting for a moment about the dual springs) then no wonder it is so soft returning the  slide forward.  We could accomplish much of the same effect by using a 7 lb spring with a normal guide rod, but who would do that?  We don't use that light a spring because of the rear slam of the gun.  Has the rear slam been over-rated all these years?  So how can the light STI-RM not be allowing too much rearward smash if its total resistance is so light?  The dual springs, if anything makes it that much lighter in "total" resistance when measuring the force over distance and 1 spring is extra light.  Right?  So then it would seem the better two spring STI-RM setup would be one that has the same peak resistance of our old spring rates... which is about 10 pounds (and really even more because of the two spring setup).  Is it that easy to change spring rates on these things?

2)  If you use the two-springs-and-a-washer setup, sure they will both "try" to compress together, but the lighter spring will activate at a faster rate earlier simply because of its lighter rating, and will compress fully before the heavier rate spring finishes its compression.  I've gotta play around with some mockups.   The spring companies came out with "progressive rate" springs, and I think that was a step in the right direction, but if they could make the light side lighter and the heavier side heavier in the same spring you'd really have something!  Anyone got a friend in the production side of Wolf or ISMI?

[BamBam]

I played with the light version of the STI-RM some more while out of the gun.  The smaller spring is definately the heavier one of the two springs in this device, and the larger spring seems to be a shorter version of the normal springs we use, though closed at both ends.

The small heavy side spring is about 8-1/2 pounds and the larger light spring is 6 or 7 pounds.  Exactly what I thought.  Nothing in this setup, individually or combined, delivers near the resistance of the 10 pound springs we had been using.   The total effect is then roughly the same as an 8 pound standard recoil spring in your gun.  Either it will be bad for the gun, or for all these years we never really needed more than an 8 pound spring.  Which is it?

The large spring is easy to play with but that is on the light side of the device.  You can't make the larger spring any stronger than the 8-1/2 lb. little spring or you reverse the spring action in the gun.  Its really the heavy small spring that should be changed to a 10 or 11 pound jobber, and leave the other the way it is or a touch stonrger.  How can you get in to access the smaller spring?

Anyone know?  I think this thing would be the ticket with a 7 lb large spring and maybe an 11 lb small spring for an open gun.  Does anyone know what the spring rates are for what STI is calling the "heavy" spring version?

[Chriss Grube]

Bam Bam,

TJ has always been a proponent of the light spring set up. He runs a spring which is usually 4-5 pounds lighter than what conventional thinking called for. He told a bunch of guys in the class to switch from a 16 lb down to a 12-13 lb in a .40 limited. I was running a 9 pound in my old open gun. I tried as low as a 8 in the new open gun and the RM feels smoother. You might try a heavy rear spring with the light front spring. The way TJ explained it to me was the heavy rear spring is just to ensure the round is stripped reliably from the mag and then the lighter spring being just strong enough to close the action. It takes as much of the sight bounce out as possible while still allowing 100% functioning. It would be great to have the system set up so that it could be tuned to the specific gun. The load and the slide weight are the variables in the problem. The light works great in my gun but the slide is extremely light. Scott G might have some insight on how they are put together, he broke a bunch. It would probably be a thread system for ease of production.

[Detlef]

last time I asked TJ he ran a 9 lb recoil spring (conventional Wolff) in his .40 Limited gun. He said another one of his guns needs a 10lb for reliable feeding. At that time he ran no Sprinco or STI RM (the latter wasn't available at the time).

--Detlef

[ErikW]

BamBam, you might be on to something. The documentation included with the RecoilMaster says to use to the included reverse plug to prevent damage to your gun. Maybe their special plug takes all the abuse?

[BamBam]

This is all very interesting, because if nothing else, if the STI-RM proves you can run a gun with no more than an 8-1/2 lb max recoil spring then we can all benefit from lowering our spring rates and getting an easier forward push.  I am going to test the resulting rear slam with the STI-RM this week.  I took my buddies gun and polished any marks from the barrel feet, and marked them with black ink.  We'll try a hundred rounds and see what the inside of the gun looks like afterwards.

If the small heavy spring of the STI-RM is for stripping rounds, and the large light spring is for the gentle slide close... the conclusion would be that slowing the rearward movement of the slide is irrelevent to guys like TJ.  The slide is whipping back for sure.  That does happen, and the light STI-RM rates certainly aren't doing much to stop it.  But then the gun must be flipping a good bit.  Sure it closes the slide easy, but at what expense to the rearward motion?    Todd is fond of saying that he likes the gun to flip as long as it comes back to target the way he wants.   I think it can only be better to make devise a way to dampen the impact in both directions.  Anyone have an idea what the "heavy" STI-RM smaller spring rates at?  I think the combination of the small spring from the "heavy" unit combined with the big spring of the "light" unit could be the ticket in all guns.  

Does anyone have both STI-RM versions to try this out?  

[BamBam]

Follow-up...

The "light" STI-RM feels great in the open gun, and I can't see any damage inside the gun.  Can't figure out yet where the rear impact forces [due to the light spring rates] are going to settle.  Maybe that is why there was talk about these rods breaking on the other thread.

I starting lookign at the "heavy" version of the STI-RM and noticed that the small spring seems to be exactly the same, but they increase the rating of the larger spring and the unit operates in reverse with the small spring being the lighter of the two (maybe 8-1/2 pounds) and the larger spring being heavier (maybe 10 pounds).  

I don't see how this thing is any different than using two different springs on the same guide rod, closed ends touching somewhere in the middle.  I made a mock up for the Limited gun with 2" of 14 lb spring, and 4" of 10 lb spring.  Test fire begins next week!!

[shred]

Btw, RecoilMasters are now available from Brownells.

[Jack Suber]

A friend of mine (new shooter) came by last night with his new Edge.  He wanted me to take a look at it because it kept jamming on him (failing to feed).  

When I picked up the pistol and racked the slide, I immediately noticed a very pronounced "crunchy" feeling.  It really startled me and I wondered if he had dropped the pistol in sand or something.  Then I noticed it had a Recoil Master on it (the Edge was shipped with it installed).  I played with the slide some more and actually got it to lock back without the slide stop being engaged!  So, I decided to take it down and see what was the matter.  After figuring out how to use the little green disassembly piece provided by STI, I began looking at the RM.  I was amazed at how poor the quality control was on it.  The edges of the head  of the moving part were rough with metal edges hanging off (it appeared to be punched metal that was not cleaned up afterward).  There were also significant tool marks on the the rod itself.  If I rubbed the recoil spring over the tool marks and the spring would snag on them.  I reassemble the pistol and pulled the slide back where it locked again with out the slide stop.  I then took a screw-driver and pushed down on the guiderod.  Nothing happened.  Then I pushed up on it and the slide released and came forward.  So, I figured the guiderod was binding in the recoil plug.  

I then tested the gun with a standard guiderod, a tungsten guiderod, and a Sprinco.  I experienced the binding problem with both the tungsten and the standard guiderod - though not as pronounced (The crunchy feeling was gone but the binding still occured).  The Sprinco seemed to work well and did not bind.  

So, I decided to relieve and polish the opening of the recoil plug and that eliminated the problem.  I also polished the guiderod and filed the rough edges off of the head of the RM because they were rubbing against the underside of the barrel (I assume the crunchy-feel was from this contact because the bottom of the barrel had a brushed finished that was snagging on the rough edges of the RM).   Now, the pistol works fine.

 

What amazes me is that STI would let a gun go with out even checking it (The only way this could not have been noticed would be from not opening the slide).  I sure hope they are not running into quality control problems.  Another thing I found interesting is that my Edge came with a standard size ejector.  My friend's Edge had a very long ejector (both .40 cal).  Wonder why there is a difference.   My friend is going to shoot the RM this weekend and if it gives him any problem, he is going to switch to one of my conventional guiderod setups.  Anyone else had similar experiences?  I know there have been breakages, but how about situations like this?  Later.

Jack    

[Rufus The Bum]

I had alot of problems with my Edge as well.  They have "custom shop" prices, but in fact, their regular production guns like any other.  I seriously doupt a gunsmith makes an entire gun from start to finish, probably 8 or so people involved in making every gun, so it's easy to pass a flaw off on someone else.  

[solidsnake]

i have been eyeing it for a while.  should i take the plunge?  any truthful fairytale ending or nightmare you have to share would be appreciated.

[jhgtyre]

These links should have some good Recoil Master info.

1

2

3

4

5

6

-ld

[Kevin Kline]

Hey all,

I talked with Todd Jarrett at the Shot SHow and asked him about the Recoilmaster. We only spoke about his Open gun, but he stated he does have a Recoilmaster in his Open gun and he loves it, he said it makes a big difference to him. I didn't get to ask if it was a light or heavy one or what spring rates he had, just what I stated above.