Most 1911 gunsmiths will tell you one specific thing to NEVER do to a pistol. That's clear the gun and unlock the slide and allow it to slam forward. I NEVER do this with any gun. I've known some gun shops that have a policy written up that say if you do that to one of their guns when you are looking at it, that you just bought it or paid to have it looked at by a smith to assure nothing was hurt by your actions.
That being said. The actual weight of the stock recoil spring is 16# (according to Wolf Springs and others). Common wisdom in the competition arena, where fast shooting is mandatory and recoil management is everything, is to lighten the stock recoil spring instead. A 24# spring is going to possibly even cause issues with any lighter power ammo not being able to reliably cycle the slide. Now if you are a CorBon +P+ kind of shooter then the higher spring might be a good move but even then I wouldn't make such a radical jump as 16# to 24#. Buy a few intermediate springs and shoot bill drills (6 shots into a target as fast as you can from about 10y) to see what effect the spring weight has on the timing of your shooting. It's a timing drill developed by Matt Burkett I believe. When you play with it a little bit you will see what the effect of the spring has on your firing cycle timing and you will find that you might have a bit too much spring in your M&P. I run a 13# spring in my standard 9 with target loads so far, but I'm experimenting with 14# and 15# springs too.
greatzippy said:
That being said. The actual weight of the stock recoil spring is 16# (according to Wolf Springs and others). Common wisdom in the competition arena, where fast shooting is mandatory and recoil management is everything, is to lighten the stock recoil spring instead. A 24# spring is going to possibly even cause issues with any lighter power ammo not being able to reliably cycle the slide. Now if you are a CorBon +P+ kind of shooter then the higher spring might be a good move but even then I wouldn't make such a radical jump as 16# to 24#. Buy a few intermediate springs and shoot bill drills (6 shots into a target as fast as you can from about 10y) to see what effect the spring weight has on the timing of your shooting. It's a timing drill developed by Matt Burkett I believe. When you play with it a little bit you will see what the effect of the spring has on your firing cycle timing and you will find that you might have a bit too much spring in your M&P. I run a 13# spring in my standard 9 with target loads so far, but I'm experimenting with 14# and 15# springs too.
