Let’s talk Nelson Spring Kits

[Chuck E Ducky]

Ok so I know I’m always pushing stock silver springs on the Phantom however…. Not all Nelson’s are created equal. And the Phantom isn’t the only Nelson. (Just the best, I kid or am I 🤔) Dimensions, volume, valve designs are all a little different. Back in the day we used to have a plethora of Nelson valve spring kits with various springs that offered a little tuning options for those who like to tinker. Many of us have gone down this rabbit hole, trying to get a few shots here or a few shots there 12 g. (Shoot, slower nerd) Am I right lol.

Well Anyway,

Who in your opinion made the best Nelson valve Spring kits?

What kit had the most usable tuning options?

My plan is to find a complete kit and send it out to be replicated and bring back tuning options for Nelson markers again. Hopefully with MCB’s help I can find a complete kit worth replicating. Not looking to retire off this just looking to bring back the options we use to have available to the community. I know we have a few guys working on the cup seal issue. Why not bring back spring kits.

Maybe split the difference of a Phantom kit for more fine tuning?

Just brain storming here.

Thoughts.

[Grendel]

My favorite Nelson kits were from Pro-Team products but I am biased as they used to be one of my suppliers they just seemed to be good quality and consistent.

That being said I have never held to the necessity of buying dedicated kits. I have just collected compression springs from everywhere (hardware stores, paintball buy outs, yard sales, generic kits and custom ordered) and I just plow through those to find the length, diameter and spring rates I need at the time.

I used to have a setup for measuring spring rates and I kept part bins sorted by length, diameter and spring rate to pick from when I was tuning markers but that setup was taken apart years ago and my springs are now just in a mix bin without any reasonable sorting. This subject comes up quite often "what spring do I need" and I see people say you need "blue" or "red" or "CCI Silver" as a definitive answer and in general I hate this advice. As someone who actually measured spring force I know for a fact those kits varied wildly even within just one color and what was red for one kit may be green for another. Even Mike's Silver springs varied but I will give him credit his source was fairly consistent and that is why with Phantoms you are pretty much good to go with stock springs. Mike knew what he was doing and had good suppliers (who knows Mike might have even made his own, knowing him it really is not that hard).

I bought this winter the stuff to rebuild a compression spring tester and start measuring and sorting springs again. I have thought about doing this so I can order springs made and segregate them by actual spring rates and provide a service to the community of getting springs they want/need. Not looking to make money just help take the guess work out of it. Hell when I get it rebuilt I would even be willing to test and sort springs you already have.

[Chuck E Ducky]

I have my big bag O springs myself. I give it the old index/ thumb pinch and go all goldilocks on them myself. Finding a way to organize them would definitely be cool. Maybe a spring tester would make a better investment. I like that idea it could be platform universal. See this is why I ask MCB.

Maybe our resident 3D printer guys can come up with a simple hand held device we could then go to any good hardware store and shelf pick what we need.

I’m a slut for paintball specific tools that make my life easier. Any ideas on a specific design you found worked well. I imagine it can be fairly simple. Probably want to go mechanical or is there a cheap digital option just for the sake of making it smaller for the tool box.

We can then talk to Price about getting some of his fancy Beans Boxes to organize our springs., 😉

[Nish]

Ok, now you have my attention.

[SignOfZeta]

My 1992 Trracer, my 2022 Sterling, and everything in between all have stock springs. I can’t seem to contrive any reason whatsoever to change any of them. Every experiment has brought me back to “stock”.

Honestly…yeah. Shoot slower. It’s cheaper and easier than sending 1000 springs through to mail from every possible source just to *maybe* get an extra shot from a 12g. Save some CO2 on the other end of the occasion by just not mailing a ton of junk.

[Chuck E Ducky]

Yeah well it’s not for everyone. I like to tinker so do a lot of us here. Having away to measure what we already have might be really helpful. Even just finding and figuring out what we have. I know my springs are all mixed together. For the sake of organization and convenience more then anything.

[Grendel]

In general I have to agree, that when buying a marker for myself I really have not needed anything but stock springs. The exception would be trying experiments to get most efficiency or lowest pressure (this tended to be stack tube markers). Where I differ was maintaining rental fleets of markers. There were markers in the early days that straight from the manufacturer that did not shoot at a reasonable velocity and required re-springing to get them into a safe range for the fleets. Then there is tech-ing other players markers, that was the wild west in springs and usually the owner completely fubar-ed their setup before bringing them to be teched. Finally there is the custom built markers to mine or others specifications and those definitely took respringing because of the changes desired over a stock configuration.

[Jordan]

My 1992 Trracer, my 2022 Sterling, and everything in between all have stock springs. I can’t seem to contrive any reason whatsoever to change any of them. Every experiment has brought me back to “stock”.

Honestly…yeah. Shoot slower. It’s cheaper and easier than sending 1000 springs through to mail from every possible source just to *maybe* get an extra shot from a 12g. Save some CO2 on the other end of the occasion by just not mailing a ton of junk.

For those of us building markers from "scratch" or rebuilding junkers that don't have any stock springs, a source of spec-ed springs would be greatly appreciated. It's not like I can call up Sheridan and order a stock valve spring anymore.

[XEMON]

I sourced a spring kit for Sheridan utilizing lighter spring, but it only fit PGP length hammer. They don't make them any longer.
Let me know if you want a few sets, I should have some left 😁

[Jordan]

XEMON would love some if they were longer... almost all my brass stuff uses rifle springs.

[XEMON]

I reached out to the spring manufacturer for the one i found that works, and they basically told me to f-off unless i had several thousands (if not hundred of thousands) of spring to order ... Ive played with stacking 2 of them with a machined "connector" with extremely limited success

[_Boris_]

I'm fed up with spring kits in general, I'll roll my own and may be start recording specs of springs that work. I've rebuilt a bunch of old markers and frankly picking/choosing springs is annoying. Also consistency is something left to be desired.

[Grendel]

FYI, ordered some parts for putting together my test stand. So it shouldn't take long until I start doing measurements.

[Slim]

"Many of us have gone down this rabbit hole trying to get a few shots here, or a few shots there from a 12-gram."

And some who have gone down that rabbit hole have come to the realization that spending a ton of time, money and energy on trying to maximize 12-gram efficiency is ultimately a "fool's errand". I mean how much are you willing to invest in trying to get another 5 shots off a 12-gram? If the goal was for use in tournament play, then maybe, but for recreational play? Seems like that same time, money and energy could be better used in other ways.

[RAZRBAKK]

I'm surprised to see so much push-back on this idea. This is literally a tinkerers forum. Sure, some guys just wanna go out and play. But for as long as I can remember the running joke was how little MCBers play, despite their constant buying/modifying/selling.

I'd love some spring options. Literally all of my Nelsons have required some level of tuning. Looking forward to what you come up with, Chuck.

[Grendel]

I'm with you, in the past I have done the "max efficiency", "low pressure",...etc. efforts for fun and the "science of it". My reason for supporting this this effort is debunking the "just use a red hammer and yellow valve springs and you are good...etc." type of advice and actually give myself and others actual values and combinations they find work. Hell, even when playing stock class I have never really cared about CO2 cartridge to shot ratios. I am pretty much shot 20 change cartridge player.

[Nish]

I'm surprised to see so much push-back on this idea. This is literally a tinkerers forum. Sure, some guys just wanna go out and play. But for as long as I can remember the running joke was how little MCBers play, despite their constant buying/modifying/selling.

I'd love some spring options. Literally all of my Nelsons have required some level of tuning. Looking forward to what you come up with, Chuck.

And to add to this and Grendels comment. Messing with this stuff is fun, relaxing, and less expensive then buying another gun. If I can relax for an afternoon and find a setup that I like the feel of a little better, gets me the one or two more shots so that I'm confident changing after 1 more tube than I was before, or get a little better consistency, awesome.

If we can identify actual properties of the springs we use so that I don't need to start a WTB for "Red Hammer spring from kit not sold in 30 years by company out of business for 30 years" EVEN BETTER.

At the end of the day it's the same people, with the same opinions, (edit: full disclosure, I am one of those same people with the same opinion) in a new thread

[SignOfZeta]

What’s the difference between “relaxing” someone and feeding their OCD?

The “relaxed” just use the stock spring, is what I’m getting at.

[Nish]

Maybe not knowing the answer to that question on a personal level is why you always seem to be cranky?

[Chuck E Ducky]

So after doing some research there are ways to figure out how strong a spring is with mathematics using measurements. Understanding this I imagine is key to producing an accurate way of creating a tool to test a spring.

Probably the easiest way to do this is have the equation setup in Chat GPT and a Caliper in hand. Let AI do the math.

Anyone have experience building apps?

[Chuck E Ducky]

I’m saying as a standard of measurement for developing a tool. For calibration purposes.

[SignOfZeta]

Devices to measure springs have been around for a loooooooooong time. You don’t need to invent a thing, you wouldn’t be able to, it’s all been invented. You don’t need any AI either. Hot Rod guys mastered this before we were born.

[Grendel]

Yes, you can calculate (expected) spring rate with knowing the diameter of the wire the number of turns the length of the spring (Hook's Law) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hooke%27s_law. Is it accurate? Yup sure is and empirically most of the time it works out within a reasonable level of error given accurate data/measurements. This is used when you design or order springs from any of these suppliers. That being said there is variation in the actually process of making the springs and general quality control. So an ideal spring may easily vary within one manufacturer let alone between manufacturer. So my issues has been the general advise to use specific 3rd party colored compression springs as gospel when sometimes that advice can cause issues. I want to discombobulate that by doing some objective measurement comparison between kits and within a kit supplier.

[SignOfZeta]

I'm surprised to see so much push-back on this idea. This is literally a tinkerers forum. Sure, some guys just wanna go out and play. But for as long as I can remember the running joke was how little MCBers play, despite their constant buying/modifying/selling.

I'd love some spring options. Literally all of my Nelsons have required some level of tuning. Looking forward to what you come up with, Chuck.

It’s not “push back” is just someone asking “why?”. If you don’t have an answer to that question yourself and a thin skin you will see it as a threat.

The idea of scratch building guns is for sure the best excuse yet. Even then…unless I was designing something truely cutting edge (ie: not a PG based pirate pistol) I’d probably be trying to design the gun for Phantom springs to make my life easier and rely on adjustable bolts for perfecting velocity. If I only get 28 shots instead of 29 that’s OK because I’m not going to be trying to make a 12g last an hour in any situation.

[RAZRBAKK]

It’s not “push back” is just someone asking “why?”. If you don’t have an answer to that question yourself and a thin skin you will see it as a threat.

The idea of scratch building guns is for sure the best excuse yet. Even then…unless I was designing something truely cutting edge (ie: not a PG based pirate pistol) I’d probably be trying to design the gun for Phantom springs to make my life easier and rely on adjustable bolts for perfecting velocity. If I only get 28 shots instead of 29 that’s OK because I’m not going to be trying to make a 12g last an hour in any situation.

I don't see it as a "threat". But you also didn't ask why, you told why. Several people have already stated why they want to.

If you think its a fruitless undertaking to pursue an additional shot or two, that's fine. But like I said, people here simply like to tinker. I don't think its worth shooting down an idea because you wouldn't pursue it.

[Grendel]

....and back on to topic, I have rebuilt a compression spring tester setup with a temporary base for holding the spring. It works now collecting together the various whole spring hits I have to do some comparison measurements as well as the random selection of other springs I keep for paintball. Next I need to clean off the bench and dedicate a little time at night to zone out to some music and make some measurements and do some sorting of springs.

Now the question do you all prefer measurements in Lbf/in or N/mm (Pounds Force per inch or Newtons per millimeter)? I have a light preference for N/mm but that is because of my background but it is not a hard preference.



Oh, and if this effort bothers your sensibilities it is easily remedied just ignore this thread and you will no longer be bothered.

[Nish]

Is one of those measurements more often listed in retail sales?

[Grendel]

I would say most of our audience lbf/in is most common or easily understood and places like Lee Springs are very comfortable with its use but they are also accustom to using N/mm. It really is preference more then anything. For my work when I was running the QA lab most of our specs were in N/mm so that is what we used. Since we work with caliber in paintball maybe Imperial measurements would be best?