BG 2.0: For your recoil spring and guide rod pleasure -

[halfmoonclip]

Okay, fair 'nough. With all the reports of the difficulty in racking the 2.0, I wasn't sure what to expect. But honestly, I don't find it difficult at all. I'll be receiving the OEM spring in black next week.

Is Smith actually selling recoil springs? I like to keep a spare on hand, especially for small, highly stressed pistols.
Thanks,
Moon

 

[halfmoonclip]

I'll be watching the responses here. Do want a spare recoil spring; I start accumulating spares for carry guns.
Have figured out the OEM spring problem, getting it tucked under the endcap of the guide rod. Not a big deal.
Moon

 

[ImDrRich]

Re: Spare recoil spring & guide rod:

I am on my 4th. (Yes - you read that right!)

The 2nd, 3rd, and 4th were courtesy (free) by calling S&W Customer Service. No questions asked.

Still, I am in shock with all the problems with this little pistol I wanted to like so much.

 

[lunger]

Re: Spare recoil spring & guide rod:

I am on my 4th. (Yes - you read that right!)

The 2nd, 3rd, and 4th were courtesy (free) by calling S&W Customer Service. No questions asked.

Still, I am in shock with all the problems with this little pistol I wanted to like so much.

I also received one by calling customer service . It has to be a known issue for them to provide them no questions asked.

I received mine from Galloway . Looks to be much better quality. Weather hasn't permitted me to check function yet.

 

[GnarlsR2]

The OEM spring rate has been perfect.
I can baby it as gently as possible and it goes 100% into battery.

I noticed that Galloway is only offering OEM and +10 springs for this part. Perhaps they discovered what you did??

Yes, I noticed GP has removed the -10% spring option.

I'm somewhat surprised that as good as they are and experienced in designing and making the great aftermarket parts, they didn't catch the -10% option was insufficient static spring pressure to push the slide back to full battery position.

 

[GnarlsR2]

Here’s my experience since the beginning of August…

In my worthless opinion, the BG2 OEM guide rod and spring assembly was a poor design.

The photo shows the twisted end of the spring only contacts the cap about 0.008” on the front of the guide rod.

The end of the spring would easily pop out from under the cap, as in the photo. That condition will prevent the guide rod spring assembly from seating into the collar inside the front of the slide.

When I first did a field strip, clean and lube out the box, it took me about 30 minutes of fiddling to figure out why I could not get the guide rod spring assembly back into the slide. After several times disassembling and reassembling, the end of the spring would pop out from under the guide rod cap and prevent reassembly.

I contacted S&W Customer Service, and my issue with the guide rod and also the issue of the 12-round mag hanging up loading at 3 rounds. I told the female customer service person that I fixed the follower. She was not interested in any of my feedback and there was no empathy or apology for the issues I explained. She simply offered to send a new guide rod. 16 days later I received the replacement. It was exactly the same part.

I decided, since I have a new spare, I would do my own “fixing” and “gunsmithing”.

Pulling the spring from around the guide rod was easy. With my Dremel tool cut-off wheel I cut about 3/8” off the twisted spring. I also cut-off about 3/8" inch from the end of the spring that contacts the rear cap on the guide rod. That was to see if it would reduce the amount of force and grip to rack the slide. Cutting off the twisted part of the spring, allowed the end of the spring to sit under the cap with about 0.026” of contact. With pliers I had to squeeze the spring end up against the guide rod after working the spring back onto the guide rod… that was NOT easy.

The photo shows my modified spring.

The other photo shows my Sig P365 Micro guide rod spring assembly. It has a flat washer under the rod cap that is 0.0835” wider than the end cap and perfectly covers the spring under it.

It appears that a thin little flat washer and a flat spring end would have been a better design for S&W…. BUT… what the heck do I know about firearm designs and engineering??

 

[DeepPenetration]

I think my big challenge is going to be getting the Lehigh Defense rounds to cycle reliably. That seems to be a big bugaboo.

I ran a box of 20 Lehigh’s thru mine with no problems. Mine also cycled Underwood equivalents just as well.

 

[Harper]

Here’s my experience since the beginning of August…

In my worthless opinion, the BG2 OEM guide rod and spring assembly was a poor design.

The photo shows the twisted end of the spring only contacts the cap about 0.008” on the front of the guide rod.

The end of the spring would easily pop out from under the cap, as in the photo. That condition will prevent the guide rod spring assembly from seating into the collar inside the front of the slide.

When I first did a field strip, clean and lube out the box, it took me about 30 minutes of fiddling to figure out why I could not get the guide rod spring assembly back into the slide. After several times disassembling and reassembling, the end of the spring would pop out from under the guide rod cap and prevent reassembly.

I contacted S&W Customer Service, and my issue with the guide rod and also the issue of the 12-round mag hanging up loading at 3 rounds. I told the female customer service person that I fixed the follower. She was not interested in any of my feedback and there was no empathy or apology for the issues I explained. She simply offered to send a new guide rod. 16 days later I received the replacement. It was exactly the same part.

I decided, since I have a new spare, I would do my own “fixing” and “gunsmithing”.

Pulling the spring from around the guide rod was easy. With my Dremel tool cut-off wheel I cut about 3/8” off the twisted spring. I also cut-off about 3/8" inch from the end of the spring that contacts the rear cap on the guide rod. That was to see if it would reduce the amount of force and grip to rack the slide. Cutting off the twisted part of the spring, allowed the end of the spring to sit under the cap with about 0.026” of contact. With pliers I had to squeeze the spring end up against the guide rod after working the spring back onto the guide rod… that was NOT easy.

The photo shows my modified spring.

The other photo shows my Sig P365 Micro guide rod spring assembly. It has a flat washer under the rod cap that is 0.0835” wider than the end cap and perfectly covers the spring under it.

It appears that a thin little flat washer and a flat spring end would have been a better design for S&W…. BUT… what the heck do I know about firearm designs and engineering??

Easy to see what you're referring to here. Your pictures make that very clear. It looks to me that the inside diameter of the coil is too large. Like the flat wire used to make the spring should have been wider, so the coil would make proper contact with the inside of the slide, but also not be so open on the inside that it would easily slip off and over the end of the rod like it's been doing. Too much clearance there between the rod and the spring.

 

[GnarlsR2]

Hi Mike,

Good observation. I agree.
S&W may have a design engineer spot open.

 

[Harper]

Hi Mike,

Good observation. I agree.
S&W may have a design engineer spot open.

Ha! At my age and present arrangement, they can't afford me.

 

[Harper]

I ran a box of 20 Lehigh’s thru mine with no problems. Mine also cycled Underwood equivalents just as well.

Unfortunately, I tried it this morning, and couldn't get it to feed the Lehigh 68gr rounds at all. Got the first one to load manually by racking the slide. Fired the one round and the next round hung up.

I'm going to work on it. Polish the ramps, etc. Need to get some more equipment for my Dremel before I can start on that.

 

[Cheyenne WYO]

Lehigh’s factory version of the 68 grain XD round was too weak to reliably cycle both my Glock 42 and Sig P365-380. Underwood’s standard pressure version ran about 200 fps MV faster and worked fine. Using Lehigh’s load data on its own website, I was pushing handloaded ammo out of the same 2 guns 100 fps faster than the Lehigh factory ammo. (Those cycled fine in those guns.) I wrote the company, but I don’t know if they did anything about it.

 

[joeb427]

Bought the black regular power Galloway guide rod. Works great!

 

[lunger]

Following up on my reply . Weather finally allowed me to try my BG 2.0 with the Galloway black OEM guide rod spring assembly .

200 rounds of range ammo and a handful of defensive ammo with zero issues. I am now confident to go with it for carry.

Disassembled and cleaned when I got home. What a joy to snap it in place without any fuss . This is the design Smith should have used .