Cocked and locked time limit

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charliek

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I am 81 and arthritic. My house gun is a 1911 and racking the slide is difficult so I keep it cocked and locked. How long can I keep it in that condition without damaging springs?
 
charliek said:
I am 81 and arthritic. My house gun is a 1911 and racking the slide is difficult so I keep it cocked and locked. How long can I keep it in that condition without damaging springs?
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Yes, they are designed for that type of carry

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I believe the answer to the question is indefinitely.

To answer a question that was not asked I would be much more concerned about not being able to manipulate the slide in case of a failure to fire or other malfunction.
 
It is my understanding that a good quality spring is not "damaged" or otherwise weakened by keeping it in a compressed condition.

Continuos compression and decompression (cycling) is supposedly what weakens springs, Some of the other guys might fill in on how long they have kept their pistol in "condition one" with no ill effects.
 
Springs can wear out and get damaged by a long time of staying compressed. I mean, there is a lot of pressure involved with them staying compressed. That said, I've kept 1911s cocked and locked and other firearms loaded and chambered for months at a time with no ill effect. But, I'm also the type that changes out parts like that every few thousand rounds or after a certain period of time just to prevent issues like that from coming up at the wrong time.

It's not something I'd worry about if you're giving it some reasonable range time. I'd worry more about clearing malfunctions if you have a hard time with the slide, over worrying about spring damage.
 
A guy I worked with had recently inherited a 1911 from his grandfather. He asked me to look it over for him, disassemble it, give it a good cleaning.................

He handed it to me in the parking lot at work, loaded, cocked, and locked. It was an actual 1911, not a 1911A1 FWIW. He said that his grandfather had been issued this gun during WWII. He brought it home, hung it on the headboard of his bed in a holster, and it has been there ever since.

I have no way of verifying it, but again: according to the new owner, it had been cocked and locked since right after VE day. Even if this wasn't true, it is safe to say that it had been cocked and locked for decades.

I cleaned it, fired 50 rounds through it, then cleaned it again and gave it back to the guy; and it worked fine. The recoil spring was fine and the magazine spring was fine.

It was in absolutely like new condition (a far cry from the 1911 I was issued in the 1980s).

Based on my experience, the springs would be the last thing I would worry about in a gun that is just sitting. Back in the day when I used to compete with 1911s, I changed the springs out every so often. Maybe once a year. But I was putting sometimes 3000 rounds through the guns in a month.
 
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I kept an 8-round .45 mag loaded for twenty years, testing it at the range every five years or so, and it continued to function properly.

I doubt that the mainspring of a cocked pistol is stressed nearly as much as a loaded mag spring, if the concern is that keeping a spring compressed is going "wear it out".
 
You should be able to keep it cocked and locked for the rest of your life with no ill effect, but I hope you practice occasionally and get the opportunity to cycle it- that's the fun part!
 
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I have magazines that have been loaded for 40 years. They work fine.
There is absolutely no worry about keeping your gun cocked and locked.
 
Even if you were only 21, keeping your pistol cocked and locked would not be an issue in your lifetime in my opinion. I would shoot and clean it occasionally, and be confident it will work just fine if you ever need it. Good luck.
 
JJ45 said:
It is my understanding that a good quality spring is not "damaged" or otherwise weakened by keeping it in a compressed condition.

Continuos compression and decompression (cycling) is supposedly what weakens springs, Some of the other guys might fill in on how long they have kept their pistol in "condition one" with no ill effects.
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Both right and wrong. I'll explain, but... leaving a hammer cocked should have little or no effect on the hammer spring's life -- as that spring is NOT fully compressed when the hammer is cocked.

Leaving a spring compressed (or stretched) will do harm if, in that state, it's near it's design limits (called its "elastic limit"). That's why spring makers like Wolff recommend downloading hi-cap mags a round or two when the mags are left loaded for long periods.

Working (cycling) a spring will have little effect on spring life UNLESS, at its deepest point of compression or greatest stretch, it's near its elastic limit. At that limit, the spring material can begin to suffer micro-fractures and that can lead to cascading failures of spring material. Most gun springs generally don't get that close to design/elastic limits in normal use -- but high cap mags and very small recoil springs can experience problems. (The Rohrbaugh R9 recoil spring had a recommended service life of only 250 cycles, for example, while the recoil springs in full-size guns can go for many thousands of cycles.)
 
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They are designed to be kept that way. No worries. If it worries you take it to the gunsmith when you are 101 and get a new spring in it.
 
so I keep it cocked and locked. How long can I keep it in that condition without damaging springs?
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Essentially indefinitely.

But the springs are not what you need to be concerned about. What you need to worry about is the LUBRICANT.

Over enough time, many oils will turn to sludge. And that's a bad thing.

When my father passed, we found his Colt Govt Model in his dresser drawer. Loaded mag, cocked and locked and ready to run. I doubt he had touched the gun in 10 years. Possibly more than twice that.

after removing the mag, I cleared the gun, then let the slide run home on the empty chamber. The slide slooowly went forward, and then stopped, about half way shut. The oil in the gun had thickened over the years, and essentially turned to glue.

The gun was detail stripped and fully cleaned, and once the old oil sludge was removed, functioned flawlessly. I did NOT unload the mag (GI 7 rnd, fully loaded), and a couple months later, when we did get to fire it, it ran perfectly.

Its NOT the springs you need to worry about.

I would point out that if it doesn't rust, a 1911A1 will normally run through at least a full magazine with no lubrication in it at all.

If you live somewhere you need to protect the gun from rust, consider a good wax or silicone coating.
 
I've got a Colt 1991A1 (old roll mark) that has been in my bedside safe for over a decade. It has been cocked and locked all that time and still goes bang when I take it to the range.
 
Not true. Static tension does nothing to steel. “Creep” in metal is a function of heat and the material. A steel spring heated up will creep. A steel spring must be heated to about 800 degrees before it will start to creep (well before it turns red). Springs wear out by being used as expressed in stress cycles. If the design is correct on paper the stress cycle of a steel spring is infinite. Reality begs to differ, because rarely is the spring over designed, and most of the time it’s underdesigned. Plus mfg. processes aren’t perfect.

You will wear the spring out by firing and stress cycling. Keeping it compressed does nothing for all intensive purposes.
 
If there is any doubt, go ahead and change to current made spring, and let the grandkids figure it out!

In February, 1979, I loaded two magazines for a S&W M39-2, kept them in a WWI mag pouch with the pistol, in 2006took the pistol and mags to range and emptied em. NO problems.

Nice find and APPRECIATE IT for what it helped PRESERVE!
 
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