Top Lever Spring

[David Lien]

Help: Can someone tell me who sells the top lever spring for a hammer gun?? I think it is the same spring that is used in the hammerless, but I could be mistaken. David

[Ed Blake]

I have replaced hammerless TL springs using the Galazan product. Dixie GWs also sells them, but I have had better luck with Galazan. Both require fitting, but if you take your time it can be done in an evening.

[David Lien]

Thanks Ed. I will call Galazan's, and I think I will order three of his springs. They look like a good item to have in my "stuff pile". It has snowed for three days here, and then the wind came up and blew all the roads closed. This shuts down my daily hunting activities. Winter came early to southern Idaho this year. I will use this time to load a few shot shells and work on couple of old Parkers. Thanks again Ed for the info. on the springs. David

[Harry Collins]

David,

The top lever spring for the hammer gun is longer than the hammerless version. Be sure to save the pieces of the old spring as a guide in cutting down the new spring to fit. I reduce the size of the top lever spring on a grinder, but a word of caution to grind the length of the spring not up and down the short side. If you do the latter it will, I am told, cause the spring to break. Dixie Gun Works has both hammer and hammerless springs for about $5.00 each and I have had great luck with them. I have ground them down to fit in about ten min. Parker used three sizes of top lever springs and I have had to reduce the size of a hammergun spring to fit some hammerless Parkers. Small needle nose vice grips are worth their weight in gold for this operation.

Harry

[Dave Suponski]

Harry, I did not know there were three different top lever springs. Am I to assume that the difference was..Lifter,toplever and hammerless? Thanks for the education.

[David Lien]

Thanks Harry for the information on the different lengths of springs. I can not remember where I got the last spring.(to many birthday parties). I do remember going to the local machine shop and fitting the spring with the use of an old Souix valve grinder with a wet grinding wheel(oil cooled). The machinest gave me a lecture on not getting the spring hot. He said that HEAT was the death knell for a spring. That gun is still working and it has been shot many times. Could it be that today's spring steels are of a better quality than the spring steels of 100+ years ago??? Thanks again Harry, I enjoy and I am in awe of the technical posts that appear on this site.
David Lien

[Mark Vollinger]

Folks,
I have a quick question. I have had the top lever spring replaced which required reworking the Galazan replacement spring. Can tension on a top lever spring be adjusted other than grinding the spring?

I took another gun to a local shop for re-assembly. I cleaned the action, put a very small amount of gun grease on the bolt lever. When I picked the gun up yesterday the top lever has an unusual amount of resistance.

Your take? Top lever spring problem or the bolt lever needing to be checked?
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[Harry Collins]

The three lengths I've found are hammergun long and hammerless with two versions of short. On one of my Parkers the Dixie spring was too short by just enough not to make contact with the top lever and I had to use a hammergun spring. I did have to remove a lot of material to get it to fit.

Harry

[Dave Suponski]

Thank You Harry...I learn something new here every day. I always thought that hammerless guns were either leaf spring or in later guns coil spring. I wonder when the leaf spring length change came about in hammerless guns?

Happy Thanksgiving Harry and thanks....:bigbye: