Replacing hammer spring on Hi Power

[smle-man]

I bought a somewhat beat FEG Hi Power to be the chassis for a Ciener .22 kit that I have. It works fine on my MkIII but has a problem with not fully going into battery sometimes on the FEG. The hammer will fall but there is no strike on the rim of the cartridge so I figure that the slide isn't all the way forward. Also it will recoil enough to reset the hammer but not pick up a round. It also works sluggishly even with Mini Mags so I'm thinking the hammer spring is too stiff to allow the slide to work with enough authority to make everything function properly.

I just ordered some Wolffe reduced power hammer springs to give a try to see if that fixes the functioning issue. Not having done a hammer spring on a Hi Power before, is it straight forward or is there a secret procedure for trouble free replacement?

[smle-man]

In case anyone plans on doing this job, I finished it and found that the hardest part of the job was pushing the hammer strut up far enough to allow the retaining nut to be turned down enough to expose the teeny tiny little pin that has to be driven out to then rotate the nut off of the hammer strut to free the spring.

There is a specialized tool for this task but I didn't have one, so I put the strut with spring into a padded vise and with just enough clamping force to hold everything in place without crushing the spring, I pushed up on the strut with a shop rag for padding and got everything apart and then put back together.

The other difficult task is holding the cocked hammer back while driving in the retaining pin that holds the sear in place. I put the stripped frame in the same padded vise and used a very small C clamp to hold the hammer back while I drove the pin in. The clamp held the cocked hammer against the frame flair on the back of the grip section. I used a small punch to hold everything aligned and as I tapped the retaining pin in, it drove the punch out.

The 26 lb Wolffe spring solved the cycling issue in the HP .22 conversion kit.

[dfletcher]

Regarding holding the hammer back, I made a device that loops around the hammer spur and hooks into the magazine well. Clipped a metal coat hanger. Set up the hammer, sear and pin then full cock the hammer and loop it.

I did it a few times all by hand but the neighbors complained about the swearing and intermittent crying.

[smle-man]

Regarding holding the hammer back, I made a device that loops around the hammer spur and hooks into the magazine well. Clipped a metal coat hanger. Set up the hammer, sear and pin then full cock the hammer and loop it.

I did it a few times all by hand but the neighbors complained about the swearing and intermittent crying.

Been there myself on other jobs!