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Thread: Need mainspring for James River Armory Richmond Carbine

  1. #1
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    Need mainspring for James River Armory Richmond Carbine

    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

  2. #2
    george7542 is offline
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    I believe you are going to be looking for a euroarms mainspring.
    Jesse

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

    Steve

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    Des is offline
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    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.
    Last edited by Des; 05-05-2019 at 10:32 PM.
    Des Donnelly
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    Call Taylor & Co

    There in Winchester. Or call Phil at S & S in NY
    N-SSA Member since 1974

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    Charlie Hahn is offline
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    My springs work with little fitting, $65 and I will fit for you

    Charlie

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    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.

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    MR. GADGET is offline Moderator
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    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.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Des View Post
    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.

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    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

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