Need mainspring for James River Armory Richmond Carbine

[Maillemaker]

The mainspring has broken on my JRA Richmond Carbine.

I understand he imported these from someone and customized them.

Does anyone know the importer? Armisport I hope?

Thanks,

Steve

[george7542]

I believe you are going to be looking for a euroarms mainspring.

[Maillemaker]

OK, so the Richmond guns were knock-offs of the M1855, right? so can I fit an M1855 repro mainspring?

Steve

[Des]

JRA used Euroarms muskets. Euroarms went out of business and Euroarms parts are hard to come by. I fitted a Pedersoli spring to mine with only minor fitting. If I remember correctly the spring leaf was about 1/8 inch too long. Easily corrected by grinding slowly keeping it cool. VTI should have the part.

[Bruce Cobb 1723V]

There in Winchester. Or call Phil at S & S in NY

[Charlie Hahn]

My springs work with little fitting, $65 and I will fit for you

Charlie

[Maillemaker]

Man, dealing with these Italian firearm companies is such a fiasco.

Called VTI, out of stock. Just sold their last Pedersoli Richmond mainspring. Called Taylor's. They advised me to call Italian Firearms Group (IFG) which is basically Pedersoli.

Gotta go to the Pedersoli web site and find the part number and call them back, upon which time they will figure out how much it will cost and how long it will take for me to get it.

I've told these guys before they really need to up their game to modern times. Every item on their web site needs a "buy now" button. However they need to make it work on the back end to get the parts from Italy to my house they need to figure it out. I told the guy, "Here I am, looking at your web site with my wallet open and I want to give you my money and I can't do it!"

OK, off to go find the part number.

[MR. GADGET]

Back when Euro arms was in winchester VA
We went in and vot a lot of extra parts and locks tk keep the gun shooting. We knew it was coming and could plan ahead.

I sold all my Enfield parts or most all but kept the Springfield and Remington parts. I knew this day was just around the corner.
Glad I did that now..
Wish I had extras to sell but just enough to keep my stuff going or to use to copy if something needs to be made.

[Eggman]

Easily corrected by grinding slowly keeping it cool.

Most interesting. How hot is too hot? How much heat before part becomes brittle? Recently slimmed down a sear spring. Great spring tension created but broke after four flexes. Believe it was brittle anyway because of its humongous tension, but still wonder if I unspringed it.

[Maillemaker]

Most interesting. How hot is too hot? How much heat before part becomes brittle? Recently slimmed down a sear spring. Great spring tension created but broke after four flexes. Believe it was brittle anyway because of its humongous tension, but still wonder if I unspringed it.

Heating doesn't make it brittle. Here is a basic run-down of steel heat treating.

First, iron will not take a heat treat. You must add carbon to the iron to make steel, and it is the carbon that allows steel to be heat treated.

One of the first accounts of heat treatment, including carburization, is a passage on the making of files by Theophilus the Monk in his 12th century work, "On Divers Arts".

To carburize iron, you place it in a carbon-rich environment and hold it at a high temperature for some time. This high temperature allows the carbon atoms to migrate into the iron a millimeter or so. This converts the outer layer of the iron into steel, which will allow it to respond to heat treatment. This also has the advantage of leaving the inner core to be iron, which is ductile and keeps the part tough. Early Viking-era swords were made by forge welding steel to the outer edges of the sword while keeping the inner core iron, so that the edge could hold an edge but the sword would remain tough and not break during use.

Anyway either through carburization, or starting with homogenous steel to start with, the next step is quench hardening. This is done by heating the steel to a high temperature and then rapidly cooling the item by quenching in some medium. This results in very hard, but very brittle steel. So brittle that you can drop it on the floor and it can shatter like glass.

To prevent this, you have to temper the steel. This is done by heating the steel, but not as high as to quench it. How high you heat it determines how much hardness you draw out of the work. Old-school blacksmiths would do this by polishing part or all of the item, and then watching the oxide layers change colors on the surface of the object as it was heated. The color corresponds to the temperature. Modern heat treaters use temperature-controlled kilns to do this work in a very precise manner.

FYI, this is why when you were in Boy Scouts they told you not to stick your knife into the fire. The high temperature of the fire will easily draw the temper out of the knife blade, and it will never hold an edge very long again after that.

Anyway back to grinding the spring. If you take a shiny metal thing and you press it to the grinding wheel, you may notice colors form on the tip where it is grinding. This is the same effect during tempering I mentioned above. It is an indication that the item is getting too hot! If you are grinding hot enough to start color oxide formation on the piece, you are risking drawing the temper out of the item. My rule of thumb when grinding or polishing steel is if it's too hot to hold, it's too hot. So, I keep a bucket of water nearby to dunk the part into while grinding, so it never gets too hot to hold.

If your spring cracked after grinding, it is more likely that the spring was simply thinned too much and could not take the strain in its hardened state. It's possible it could have been spared by tempering it some, but then you risk it not being a very good spring anymore either.

Amateur heat treating is a touchy thing. Even the master armourers of our day lose pieces that have had hours and hours of hammer work put into it at the last step of heat treating, only to lose it when it cracks during the quench. It is why some of the finest armour houses of medieval times did not bother with heat treating even though the art was known - it is easy to lose the work at the end.

Anyway more than you probably wanted to know about heat treatment but there it is.

Steve

[bobanderson]

Anyway more than you probably wanted to know about heat treatment but there it is.

Steve

I appreciate the knowledge, but my problem is retaining it for later use. The real question in my mind is can that or any other heavy spring be lightened in such a way as to reduce the force it takes to flex it without stressing it to the point of failure? Does that take grinding or heating or several steps of each?

I have a Remington Rolling Block with an extremely heavy main spring that needs some magic.

[Kevin Tinny]

Hello, Bob:

There are some pretty skilled guys on the Shiloh Sharps Forum that shoot Rolling Blocks in long range black powder cartridge events.

My limited experience with having replacement springs made for Hepburns indicates that flat/v-leaf springs are peculiar to their geometry. Those were made for me by now deceased gunsmiths that would have one of four fail during drawing. A Beretta gunsmith (Valentine) that was responsible for the "SO" top grade competition over-unders told me in the 1980's that he hated v-leaf springs because of their unpredictability. One that was fully tested and used for a couple thousand shots broke during an Olympic event and cost an Italian shooter an Olympic gold medal.

Perhaps one of the active Shiloh Forum followers, including John Bly could help.

Regards,
Kevin

[Maillemaker]

I appreciate the knowledge, but my problem is retaining it for later use. The real question in my mind is can that or any other heavy spring be lightened in such a way as to reduce the force it takes to flex it without stressing it to the point of failure? Does that take grinding or heating or several steps of each?

I have a Remington Rolling Block with an extremely heavy main spring that needs some magic.

No experience with that gun but of course if you take any object and remove material from it it becomes necessarily weaker. My guess would be that removing material from any leaf spring will weaken it and it is an unforgiving balancing act to get a final result that works. Like Kevin said you'd probably want an expert in RRBs to chime in.

I fooled around thinning the mainspring on a Pietta Spiller and Burr revolver. It did make the hammer pull lighter, and it has not broken...yet. :)

Steve

[Maillemaker]

So, can an M1855 mainspring be fitted to work in a Richmond?

Steve

[MR. GADGET]

Depends on how hard the spring is.
If you use a file or stone to do the work and not a grinder there should be no change in the spring other than that of removing the metal would do.
Some will say you thin the thickness of the spring from the flat.
Others say thin the width of the spring to decrease the pressure.
The only way I have seen it done and work was to thin the width of the spring and not the thickness for repop springs where they may not have had the best heat and temper job.

As a side note... Leaf springs in old trucks I worked on were about the same leaf pack. The width would change from 2.5 to 3 or 3.5 per load carry of the truck. They did not take the main spring and thin it.
Should work the same for any leaf spring I would guess.

Our problems are most the repop parts tend to be junk.
Had several springs and parts fail on new guns when I first started. A sear from euro broke on first time shooting it. Just bad metal, did not make 10 rounds.

[Maillemaker]

For future gentle readers following along at home, indeed, a reproduction M1855 mainspring from S&S firearms can be made to fit, but it is much much much stronger than stock.

An Armisport Richmond mainspring from Taylors is not only cheaper, but is a much better hammer pull. In fact it felt somewhat light, but maybe I was biased having just removed the 1855 spring. The Armisport Richmond mainspring fires caps just fine though in testing.

Steve

[Bruce Cobb 1723V]

So how close is it to a real everyday 1861 spring or is it much shorter like a real original 1855 spring?? Thanks

[Maillemaker]

I don't have an 1861 so I cannot comment.

The Armisport Richmond Carbine spring fit much better than the 1855 spring. I had to do some serious rework to the hook end of the 1855 spring to make it work with the stirrup.

But, the lockplate peg is not quite in the right place on the Armisport spring, so the bend point of the mainspring basically touches the front lock plate screw. But, it did go together and it does function.

Steve