Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire This is why I carry a gun I can fight with.

Let me address that.

In more than 3 decades of being an armorer I have seen a number of .40s and 10mms that have come apart. The short version is in literally EVERY, and I mean EVERY case, I would ask the person, or agency about their maintenance. The answers were consistent. I would ask how many rounds fired. They would state 10K, 12K, and upwards of over 20K in some cases. Then I would ask them when the last time they had replaced their recoil spring. The consistent answer was that they had not. They explained that the gun was still functioning, so they figured that they did not need to.

Same with some agencies. They figured that the recoil spring was a permanent item and not a part that needed frequent replacement in spite of the fact that Glock teaches every single armorer who goes to their classes how to check one as well as informs them to replace them generally every 3-5K rounds depending on the generation.

The concept of never replacing a recoil spring because the gun is still running is like saying that you don't need to replace your tires because they are still round and black. Just ignore the bald spots and cords. Then when they come apart catastrophically, blame the manufacturer, instead of the consumer..


The .40 ammo I produce was developed and designed to function using a fresh standard factory weight recoil spring assembly. In testing I fired thousands of rounds with zero problems and in fact fired rounds that were considerably hotter/faster. However the trifecta of accuracy, velocity and ultra reliability was right at 1200 FPS. This is a true High Performance load and in doing a lot of chronograph tests it beat a few big name 10mm loads. All while packaged in a small frame gun.

While it was developed to run with a factory recoil spring (on a Gen 3 G22 that is 17#s), I run a 20# spring on mind as a standard practice. The reason being is that I find my shot to shot recovery time to be faster. I can shoot controlled pairs quicker and it should be just a bit easier on the gun in terms of slide to frame wear.

I never cared for the .40 due to the inaccuracy in general, and I tested a BUNCH of various projectiles and powders before I found the ideal combo. I could not be happier with the way it turned out. Keeping 10/10 on a paper plate at 50 yards is not hard if shooting from a supported position.




As it is, I would hunt Mule Deer or Black Bear with this load with total confidence.