Colt 1911 recoil spring, how light?

[ogo]

Do to a medical condition with my hands,it is getting real hard to work the action back on my 45,I allways carry it with a empty chamber.They list springs from 8-22 lb.My handloads are 230gr. hardball,at about 800fpc,how light do you think I could go without hurting the gun? I think my spring is 16lb now. thank much for any info.      OGO

[Mikey]

ogo:  if your loads are ball at 800'/sec, you should be able to leave your factory 16 lb spring in the piece without suffering any damage to it.  Also, if you have a medical condition that makes racking the slide back difficult for you, please think about getting a military holster for the 45 - the block inside the holster is designed to allow you to rack the slide by literally shoving the pistol into the holster so that the recoil spring plug catches on the block and the slide racks back.  It's pretty useful for a guy who has the use of only one hand/arm.  HTH.  Mikey.

[Conan The Librarian]

Maybe as light as 14 pounds, but if it will cycle with a 16 pound spring, then anything lighter will lead to battering.  I use a light load of 3.6 grains of bullseye with a 185 grain bullet in my Kimber and it works fine with a 14 pound spring.  

Another option is called, I think, a slide racker. There are various designs. If you go to brownells.com and search for racker 1911 you will see one option. There are others.  You could rest the racker on a wooden shooting bench, then rack the slide by pushing the gun down.

[Nanook 450]

If you rack the slide by grasping from the bach with your index finger and thumb, stop doing that.  Hold that pistol closer to your chest, pointing down and away from your body, i.e. turn into it - then grasp with your first three fingers and thumb.  Rack and LET GO.  My wife can easily rack either my Springfield TRP or Kimber PRO CDP like that  - she cannot the other way.

[IntrepidWizard]

With Arthur,you need to put it in your right hand,close to chest as stated and but left fingers and thumb over slide and move both arms in opposit directions,also with left fingers through trigger guard and right fingers on slide pull in opposite directions,I NEVER CARRY WITH A EMPY CHAMBER.