The recoil spring on my 229 is much softer than when I bought it in 2007. Its a 9mm and has more than 1000 but probably less than 2000 rounds through it. Recently I noticed that when I do my customary chamber check (cock hammer, move slide till it contacts hammer, see bullet, let go of slide, decock) that when I let go of the slide, it doesn't return to battery. It will just sit a quarter inch out of battery. It seems to be happening right as the barrel starts to tilt forward, and only does this with a full magazine inserted. Is this normal for a pistol, or a sig? Or do i need to order a new recoil spring? This is my carry gun, and therefore needs to function as well as possible.

Happy new year!

I had a somewhat similar issue with a used Glock 17 I bought, and the recoil spring fixed the problem.

And if your barrel has a cutout as a loaded chamber indicator, I would recommend using that instead of pulling the slide back.  I took a Sig armorers course a while back and they said you shouldn't do that.  To be honest, I can't remember exactly why they said that, but it stuck in my head to not pull the slide back to check.

Ever since I took the course, I just point the gun in a safe direction, turn it to its side and look.

Many (most?) modern production guns have a chamber loaded indicator. Sometimes it is a cutout where you can see a bit of brass, sometimes it is an indicator on the extractor, sometimes it is a standalone device that pops up/out when there is a loaded round in the chamber. Regardless, if your gun has one, you don't need to do the old school press check to determine if a round is loaded, you just look at the indicator. For the Glock, you look at the extractor on the right side of the gun.

Regardless, replacing the recoil spring is cheap insurance. Replace it. Buy a couple extras and keep them on hand, it is one part that will wear out and should be replaced as the gun is shot.

As to why you should not do press checks, there are a couple of reasons. One is the idea that institutional instruction is catered to the least common denominator of large groups- some people are stupid, and eventually one of the dullards will do a press check with his finger on the trigger and pointed at someone else. So, anything that makes manipulation of the weapon less complex and/or frequent is a good thing. Second, some rounds (like .40 s&w) don't have a lot of excess case capacity and if you keep chambering the top two rounds you can build pressures when fired due to bullet setback. Now, this would be pretty rare, but remember that some agencies rotate their duty rounds only after several YEARS and the users may be doing press checks every DAY, or multiple times a day. Under that scenario, you could get a round chambered hundreds or even thousands of times. Unlikely, but think how many opportunities exist for it to happen- someone, somewhere has done it.

Mike

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Returning to battery after a chamber check isn't an issue really (assuming you do put it in battery yourself).  I have an SP2022 that super tight and doesn't. 

So long as it returns to battery after a full slide rack, it's fine.

Buuut...  I do agree with others on replacing the spring anyway. 

http://www.gunsprings.com/Semi-Auto%20Pistols/SIG-SAUER%20%28SIGARMS%29/P-225,%20P-228,%20P-229/cID1/mID4/dID253#293

For $8, there's really no reason not to.


-T.

How can you tell, that way?


Kaso

Like Mike already said, but specifically for Sigs, the chamber is cut back so you can see the brass out of the right side of the ejection port.

You can do it while keeping the gun pointed in a safe direction by pointing it downrange (or downwards) and rotating it around the axis of the barrel until it is sideways (think gangsta-style), or far enough to see the indicator, and then just looking at the area of the barrel hood/ejection port.

I in no way think that loaded chamber indicators should be mandatory, but they're not a bad idea at all. To my mind, the very best ones are the inobtrusive ones that don't add mechanical complexity. The M&P and my Ruger LCP both have windows where you can see the brass. Glocks have an indicator "built in" to the extractor (essentially the extractor is just shaped and colored to make its position more visible). I like these types of indicators. Other guns have a separate dingus to serve as the indicator (IIRC, the Ruger SR9), and, to me, that is less elegant. One advantage of that system, though,  is that you can position the indicator in more places and make it more 'obvious' (eg, the SR9's indicator can be felt with a gloved hand, which could be useful in the dark).

Oh, and are Wolff springs better than sig's factory springs?

How could moving the slide a half inch, then releasing it possibly harm my sig? It's certainly much less force than the explosion of a bullet hurling it to the rear and then slamming forward with spring tension.

It doesn't, in and of itself. As was stated:

As to why you should not do press checks, there are a couple of reasons. One is the idea that institutional instruction is catered to the least common denominator of large groups- some people are stupid, and eventually one of the dullards will do a press check with his finger on the trigger and pointed at someone else. So, anything that makes manipulation of the weapon less complex and/or frequent is a good thing. Second, some rounds (like .40 s&w) don't have a lot of excess case capacity and if you keep chambering the top two rounds you can build pressures when fired due to bullet setback. Now, this would be pretty rare, but remember that some agencies rotate their duty rounds only after several YEARS and the users may be doing press checks every DAY, or multiple times a day. Under that scenario, you could get a round chambered hundreds or even thousands of times. Unlikely, but think how many opportunities exist for it to happen- someone, somewhere has done it.

Oh, and are Wolff springs better than sig's factory springs?

Pretty much. Plus, their calibration packs let you tune your gun before you get married to a particular spring weight. (Their heaviest spring made my CZ-82 an entirely different gun.)

The recoil spring is a cheap maintenance part. Replace it with a good factory spring.

Replacement schedule is 5000 rounds is I recall correctly. Which for the small amount of money, would be worth while to keep a few on hand.

Thanks
Todd