Cricket – tuning springs

Well, I don’t know whether it’s the best springs in the world you can get from the link I posted, but for me they’re doing a good job.

You may want to polish ends for less wear / easier turning of the spring.

If you want to balance hammer and valve spring, you also need to take into account your regulator.
You can nevertheless start with these two and see what results you yield. For the valve spring you can try different preloads without changing the spring by just turning the disc with the seven holes in the valve assembly. You only need to change a spring when you arrive at its limits.
For example if you try to lighten the valve closing force, you’d start by unscrewing the valve assembly disc. Only when the disc is not touching the spring anymore and you still want to lighten, then you’d need to change for a softer one. Take the dimensions and material of the existing spring and order one of the same length, same material but decrease wire thickness. For harder springs increase wire thickness.

This applies generally to all springs. If changing material, piano wire normally is more powerful than stainless steel.

For the hammer spring, if you want more power, there are two possibilities: maintain free length and increase wire thickness or maintain wire thickness and increase free length (and thus preload) while not exceeding maximum compression length. Disadvantage of the second solution is the risk of hammer bounce and inefficiency through waste of air.

As said, I suggest starting with the existing valve spring and adjusting using the valve disc. Unscrew for lighter closing force and longer dwell time (more power up to a certain point where you start wasting air). Screw in for more closing force and shorter dwell time.

Only do one modification at the time and measure the effect using a good chrony. This is time consuming, but the best way for you to understand what’s going on. Don’t change two things at the same time with the intention to save time. You won’t because it’s way harder to understand the combined effects of more than one modification than the effect if one single modification.

You also might want to have spare o-rings at hand.

ATB

Well no, but to be honest, I didn’t get the question. Are we talking hammer springs (as the dimensions in the 1st post seem to be that) or valve springs (2nd post). Maybe both?

I’m currently tuning a Cricket .22 for non-FAC law compliance (20 Joules), which is another animal than the full tune. Good balance between regulator, valve spring tension and hammer spring is key here in order not to have the power jerk over the limit when falling off the reg. For the hammer spring, I tried to find (and found) one. The criteria here was no preload in order to avoid bounce (and it works, you can hear it, lower sound level).
The consistency gets better with break in, but I need to get inside the gun again to do fine tuning.
The springs I use were bought on the European site of this store: http://www.sodemann-springs.us, large choice, quick delivery. I tested both: stainless and piano wire. Piano wire is stronger for the same dimensional specs, but “pings” a little more.
Hope that helps a bit.
ATB
Pa

Springs*

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Internet links on where to get these?

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