How do you change a Marlin 60 recoil spring without kinking it?

Answer 1

If you've just kinked your recoil spring while trying reassemble your gun after cleaning it, don't feel too bad. Pretty much every new shooter does this - including me.

When it comes to telling you how to do this job, Marlin's instruction booklet is about as useful as a goldfish on a motorcycle. It says "Support the spring to stop it kinking." But they don't tell you how. Thanks for that Marlin.

There's a knack to the process, it goes like this:

Put the spring over the pin. Seat the butt end of the pin into it's recess. Now, with your thumb and forefinger, grasp the spring as far up the pin as you can. Compress the spring by pushing it back toward the butt end of the pin as far as you can.

Then, using your other forefinger and thumb, do the same again. Be sure not to let the part of the spring you've just compressed decompress. Hold the spring in place (switch hands if needed) and you will see that just over half the spring's length is now compressed.

Now, insert the uncompressed portion of spring into the bolt hole.

Now push the bolt onto the pin. There is just enough overlap to allow the tip of the pin to fit into the bolt, preventing the spring from kinking. Once you've done that, you can keep pressure on the bolt (make sure that the butt end of the pin doesn't slip from it's seating recess) and push the pin, spring and bolt down into place.

It's a fiddly job, but once you've got the hang of it, it's easy. I bought 3 extra springs to allow for error. Because if you damage your recoil spring, you can't use your gun. I paid £2.99 each from the website below in sources/links. Depending on where you look, prices range from $2.99 to $25.00

Hope this helps. Happy shooting!