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Posted: 3/27/2014 8:06:00 AM EDT
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I decided to drop the $40 on a couple Sprinco Springs. I got a blue and red one.
Blue Spring: -Going into a rifle with a 16" Midlength Gas AR15Perf Lightweight Barrel -Spikes ST-T2 Buffer -PSA Full M-16 BCG -Replacing milspec buffer spring Red Spring: -Going into a rifle with a 16" Carbine Gas LW Daniel Defense Barrel -Standard carbine buffer -AIM AR/M16 .223/5.56 9310 MPI BDG Bolt Carrier Group -Replacing milspec buffer spring The rifles are both proven and in great working order. I am a little worried about going to the red spring in the carbine but that is what the sprinco webpage seemed to recommend. Does anyone think I will run into any issues with either setup? Thanks! Edit: Added the BCG for each rifle. |
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I've had nothing but problems with them in quality guns using quality ammo, and went back to stock springs.
My LMT started shortstroking and choking hard with the blue, went back to the stock spring and it was 100%. my 7.62 OBR came with the red, it would only go about 10-15 rounds before doing the same thing. I replaced it with the Tubbs flatwire and now that gun is 100% as well. I know some folks swear by them, but I've just bought a box of stock springs and swap on a regular basis. I have one gun with the white that's running fine. |
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Quoted:
eesmith, and it's interesting you mention having issues in "quality" guns with these springs. The only factory guns I own and run these combos in are DD, KAC, BCM and Noveske. I'd say those all qualify as quality guns. Quality as opposed to hobby grade, so it isn't the gun on my case. I'd say LMT and Larue both qualify as quality. I know there's plenty of people that have great results and swear by them, for me they simply caused more problems than they solved. |
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What is it you classify as "hobby" grade?
To be realistic here, manufacturer is nearly irrelevant - as the gas port, ammo and buffer are all that will really come into play here. A quality or even hobby grade rifle with a proper gas port, quality ammo and the right buffer weight should have zero issues with an enhanced powered spring. It has me scratching my head unless one of the three variables that actually matter here was off. BCG could come into play as well. |
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@Fooboy
That is the idea, to shoot it and see what happens, but given that I have a valuable resource with a ton of experience (ARFCOM) I am going to leverage that experience to mitigate any problems before I start blowing through ammo. If ammo was a negligible expense I probably wouldn't bother asking and just see how things go. You know how these threads go, post good information and ask a question... hope for a consensus... take into consideration those critical. What I didn't realize is how polarizing the sprinco springs are. Until doing some additional searching about the red spring today, I heard nothing but good things. I was reading about one guy thinking the red spring was so strong he would warp/bend his charging handle. This is not acceptable because I was planning on putting the red spring on my petite girlfriend's rifle. If she can't operate the charging handle, it will be a no-go. Based on the Sprinco charts the red spring was the correct part for a carbine gas system with a standard carbine buffer. I think I will throw the Sprinco Springs in, have her shoot a box of 5.56 and then a box of PMC Bronze .223. If it cycles the PMC I think it is fair to say it will all work. If we get a failure (first failure on either of our rifles, ever) I will replace it with the milspec. I probably shouldn't have bothered asking. That is the thing with these rifles, with all the different parts variations is difficult to nail down if something will work or not. Milspec is milspec because it has loose tolerances to increase reliability, the idea of a spring that would reduce the recoil and have a significantly larger life cycle was very appealing.. I will give it a shot, whether I catch a failure or not I will post back with my experience on both rifles. |
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"hobby"=brands like DPMS or Bushmaster.
In fairness LMT tends to cut their ports to the tight side of the 5.56mm spec. I put the blue into my MRP and took it to EAG C2, it it kept shortstroking and had to be mortared a couple times in the first 200 rounds, using 5.56 55gr. I threw back in the stock spring and put another 1,100 trouble free rounds through it. That gun started the class with a round count just over 6k with out any problems, I threw in the blue because the action spring was starting to get a little weak. The gun is just over 9k now and still running great. The OBR came with the red, the bolt needed to be wiped and oiled every 20 rounds or so or it would turn into a single shot. Tubbs flatwire cured that. I've got a white in a hard use suppressed gun, and it works fine there. Like I mentioned, plenty of of folks have good luck with them, but I've got a box of stock springs and just change at a regular interval, everything works fine and I don't see a point in changing. |
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WBlacklidge, I've run thousands of rounds of PMC Bronze 223 with a Sprinco blue spring and H2 buffer in several different 14.5" DD and BCM mids in particular.
It's not only a flawless combo, but one of the most fun to shoot as well because Bronze is a weaker load - so that combined with the mid gas, enhanced power buffer spring and heavy buffer makes for a super smooth shooting rifle. All mine eject at about 4 o'clock every time with this combo as well. Just to illustrate how ideal the whole setup is. |
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Quoted:
@Fooboy That is the idea, to shoot it and see what happens, but given that I have a valuable resource with a ton of experience (ARFCOM) I am going to leverage that experience to mitigate any problems before I start blowing through ammo. If ammo was a negligible expense I probably wouldn't bother asking and just see how things go. You know how these threads go, post good information and ask a question... hope for a consensus... take into consideration those critical. What I didn't realize is how polarizing the sprinco springs are. Until doing some additional searching about the red spring today, I heard nothing but good things. I was reading about one guy thinking the red spring was so strong he would warp/bend his charging handle. This is not acceptable because I was planning on putting the red spring on my petite girlfriend's rifle. If she can't operate the charging handle, it will be a no-go. Based on the Sprinco charts the red spring was the correct part for a carbine gas system with a standard carbine buffer. I think I will throw the Sprinco Springs in, have her shoot a box of 5.56 and then a box of PMC Bronze .223. If it cycles the PMC I think it is fair to say it will all work. If we get a failure (first failure on either of our rifles, ever) I will replace it with the milspec. I probably shouldn't have bothered asking. That is the thing with these rifles, with all the different parts variations is difficult to nail down if something will work or not. Milspec is milspec because it has loose tolerances to increase reliability, the idea of a spring that would reduce the recoil and have a significantly larger life cycle was very appealing.. I will give it a shot, whether I catch a failure or not I will post back with my experience on both rifles. Give them a shot and see what happens. It's a cheap part, so worth the experiment. I know of one very respected trainer that quit using them because he found them to be inconsistent. There's another trainer that swears by them. For me, they didn't provide any advantage, so aside from some very specific applications I don't bother with them any more. |
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Quoted:
eesmith, I hear ya, and not everything is going to work for everybody. In regards to your OBR, that's far from the first one I've heard about that has at some point easily turned into a single shot rifle. Yeah, that's not uncommon. Caylen W from Magpul recommended the Tubbs flatwire to me, and it really fixed the rifle. |
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I am running Tubb’s CS flatwire op springs with fixed and collapsing stocks and have had no issues.
They have an incredibly long advertised service life. Also since the same spring works in both types it is one less spare part. As with Springco there are people Tubb’s springs did not work for. This would seem to be one of those things you will just have to try for yourself. |
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Quoted:
WBlacklidge, I've run thousands of rounds of PMC Bronze 223 with a Sprinco blue spring and H2 buffer in several different 14.5" DD and BCM mids in particular. It's not only a flawless combo, but one of the most fun to shoot as well because Bronze is a weaker load - so that combined with the mid gas, enhanced power buffer spring and heavy buffer makes for a super smooth shooting rifle. All mine eject at about 4 o'clock every time with this combo as well. Just to illustrate how ideal the whole setup is. I got curious a few minutes ago, so I threw the blue and an H buffer in my BCM 14.5 mid and took 20 rounds of pmc bronze and a known good mag outside to try out. Out of 20 rounds single loaded, I had 4 failures to lock open. That's never happened with this rifle before with this ammo. I compared the spring with a stock one, it appears to be the same dimensions. FWIW I seem to break almost everything I buy. I just sent back a failed LMT enhanced bolt earlier this week. 
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Quoted:
I got curious a few minutes ago, so I threw the blue and an H buffer in my BCM 14.5 mid and took 20 rounds of pmc bronze and a known good mag outside to try out. Out of 20 rounds single loaded, I had 4 failures to lock open. That's never happened with this rifle before with this ammo. I compared the spring with a stock one, it appears to be the same dimensions. FWIW I seem to break almost everything I buy. I just sent back a failed LMT enhanced bolt earlier this week. Quoted:
Quoted:
WBlacklidge, I've run thousands of rounds of PMC Bronze 223 with a Sprinco blue spring and H2 buffer in several different 14.5" DD and BCM mids in particular. It's not only a flawless combo, but one of the most fun to shoot as well because Bronze is a weaker load - so that combined with the mid gas, enhanced power buffer spring and heavy buffer makes for a super smooth shooting rifle. All mine eject at about 4 o'clock every time with this combo as well. Just to illustrate how ideal the whole setup is. I got curious a few minutes ago, so I threw the blue and an H buffer in my BCM 14.5 mid and took 20 rounds of pmc bronze and a known good mag outside to try out. Out of 20 rounds single loaded, I had 4 failures to lock open. That's never happened with this rifle before with this ammo. I compared the spring with a stock one, it appears to be the same dimensions. FWIW I seem to break almost everything I buy. I just sent back a failed LMT enhanced bolt earlier this week. See. That's the kinda stuff that gets me scratching my head. You've obviously got no reason to lie here, so I know your recent experience to be true, but it's so different from my own. Even the owner of Sprinco himself recommends an H buffer with a blue spring in 14.5" BCM mids with PMC Bronze in particular. When I told him I was going to run an H2 with a blue spring in my 14.5" BCM mid with PMC Bronze he was basically like - you can give it a try, but I'd go with an H buffer. BCM 14.5" mids are already not overly gassed and PMC Bronze is weaker ammo. An H2 may be too much for that combo. Well, I have one 14.5" BCM mid in particular with an H2 and blue spring that I feed nothing but PMC Bronze. Literally nothing but PMC Bronze has ever been fired through it. Thousands of rounds, and the thing runs like a raped ape. It's a machine. Stepping down to an H with that setup would do no more than arguably add reliability in particular environments. Hence why I'm  over your experience. As I'm sure you can see, it doesn't add up at all compared to my experiences. And once again, surely not saying you are falsifying things here.
I run my ARs crazy stupid wet...not sure if that has anything to do with these particular configurations working so well for me. |
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There are other factors involved...
In the very rare case there could be a minor obstruction in the gas tube. I haven't read about that actually happening before... More likely the gas block can be slightly canted and off center, or the holes in the gas block are slightly different or the barrel gas port is machine a little different. I bet slight variations in all of that could cause things to be a little different. |
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The nature of the beast is two seemingly identical weapons from the same manufacturer can have vastly different pressure curves or anything in between.
This can happen for a lot of reasons. Thinking about the steadily increasing number of people out there making parts for these weapons it is hard to be surprised when something that works in my weapon(s) does not work for someone else or vise versa. |
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The gun was slightly sluggish with bronze before, I wasn't surprised the blue pushed it over the edge.
From the way it ran, I figure it would be reliable with a warmer load. I tend to use spec 5.56 brass ammo, so I like guns built for that. You're right, it was a nice, flat shooting combo that ejected at 4 o'clock. I may just throw the blue back in when I run hotter ammo. It's something I would definitely test out before dedicating a rifle to defense/duty use. |
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Quoted:
I have solely run Sprinco Blue springs with H2 buffers in every 14.5" and 16" mid I currently own, and have owned. It's an incredible combo that has yielded 100 percent flawless results in over a dozen different rifles and thousands and thousands of rounds. I do the same. I have three blue spring h2 combo rifles. A 10.5 SBR, a 14.5 carbine, and a 16. Middy. All run Great Even on cheap tula ammo which is my function check ammo. 10.3 is DD 14.5 is DSA 16 is a chf PSA |
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I have a PSA AR with a carbine length gas system. The Sprinco
recommended spring was a red buffer spring and an H buffer. I was a little concerned when it came in because its quite a bit stronger than the mil-spec one. Well that sucker runs like a champ! I can see an issue with a low pressure 223 but all I use is M855. And not to get away from the OP's question, Take a look at the five coil extractor spring... Its a beast! |
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I do the same. I have three blue spring h2 combo rifles. A 10.5 SBR, a 14.5 carbine, and a 16. Middy. All run Great Even on cheap tula ammo which is my function check ammo. 10.3 is DD 14.5 is DSA 16 is a chf PSA Quoted:
Quoted:
I have solely run Sprinco Blue springs with H2 buffers in every 14.5" and 16" mid I currently own, and have owned. It's an incredible combo that has yielded 100 percent flawless results in over a dozen different rifles and thousands and thousands of rounds. I do the same. I have three blue spring h2 combo rifles. A 10.5 SBR, a 14.5 carbine, and a 16. Middy. All run Great Even on cheap tula ammo which is my function check ammo. 10.3 is DD 14.5 is DSA 16 is a chf PSA Same here in all my 14.5s, I do have a white in a 16. I bought Wolf X Power for all my SBRs, I am hoping I wont regret it. |
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Quoted:
I decided to drop the $40 on a couple Sprinco Springs. I got a blue and red one. Blue Spring: -Going into a rifle with a 16" Midlength Gas AR15Perf Lightweight Barrel -Spikes ST-T2 Buffer -PSA Full M-16 BCG -Replacing milspec buffer spring Red Spring: -Going into a rifle with a 16" Carbine Gas LW Daniel Defense Barrel -Standard carbine buffer -AIM AR/M16 .223/5.56 9310 MPI BDG Bolt Carrier Group -Replacing milspec buffer spring The rifles are both proven and in great working order. I am a little worried about going to the red spring in the carbine but that is what the sprinco webpage seemed to recommend. Does anyone think I will run into any issues with either setup? Thanks! Edit: Added the BCG for each rifle. If everything is running fine what made you buy these? I guess it's only $40 but if they are reliable right now I'd leave them alone. I'm just curious... Not bashing the springs or what others have done... |
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Quoted:
I decided to drop the $40 on a couple Sprinco Springs. I got a blue and red one. Blue Spring: -Going into a rifle with a 16" Midlength Gas AR15Perf Lightweight Barrel -Spikes ST-T2 Buffer -PSA Full M-16 BCG -Replacing milspec buffer spring Red Spring: -Going into a rifle with a 16" Carbine Gas LW Daniel Defense Barrel -Standard carbine buffer -AIM AR/M16 .223/5.56 9310 MPI BDG Bolt Carrier Group -Replacing milspec buffer spring The rifles are both proven and in great working order. I am a little worried about going to the red spring in the carbine but that is what the sprinco webpage seemed to recommend. Does anyone think I will run into any issues with either setup? Thanks! Edit: Added the BCG for each rifle. So you have rifles that are working perfectly, and you want to waste (I mean spend) your money on springs that you're afraid might mess things up? At some point ARFCOM'ers have got to just go out and shoot guns rather then surfing online and buying the latest greatest AR15 assessories. Mil spec springs have been used in Hundreds of thousands of rifles and shot millions of rounds just fine. I think I paid $3.95 per spring for the last batch I bought, none have ever failed me.
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I try to make value based decisions. The cost to performance is great for a sprinco spring. Its not like I am bolting on useless crap for the sake of having useless crap on my rifle and to spend money.
The whole milspec is best is bullshit, milspec is the minimum. The lifetime of a sprinco spring is value that exceeds the price. Not to mention the spring has performance advantages as well. Now, if it doesn't work that sucks and if the advertised lifetime is not reality than I admit it was not a good purchase. |
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Update: finally got around to swapping the springs. In her rifle the red spring was only slightly more difficult to charge. She had no issue at all. There was no obvious change with the blue spring and my rifle.
She had plans this weekend so I think next weekend we will get the rifles to the range again. Will update when that happens. |
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Mike Pannone's article The Big M4 Myth: "Fouling caused by the direct impingement gas system makes the M4/M4A1 Carbine unreliable.” delves into why change out the action and extractor springs for stronger ones. His findings are based on a 14.5" or 16" barrel with a carbine gas system using a 0.062"/0.063" diameter gas port. |
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Very good article. Thank you for posting that. The weather is looking amazing for a trip to Quantico this weekend, so we should be good to go for some testing. Both of our rifles will have the milspec springs on hand in the case anything goes wrong.
I have been looking at the Sprinco extractor upgrade parts but I like to take upgrades a step at a time. If these buffer springs produce goofy results, I will know it was this change that caused it. |
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