Thanks for the replies. Getting over the flu and finally feel like doing something besides praying to the porcelain god.
In looking back I don't think that I was clear enough on what I was dealing with. Pics help and had to find something to replace photobucket.
Here's a pic of one of the sideplates with the spring sitting in place. This happens to be the plate with what I assume is the original spring (thinner).
Stan, the post (on the left) is permanently attached to the side plate. The post was filed/milled? to accept the end of the spring. Here's another pic of a assembled lockplate which as it turns out is the one with the heavier spring. The 20ga lockplate is on the left and the one on the right is a 12ga assembly I have. You can see that the spring is barely retained by the post. The post isn't much taller than the spring height and it looks like the post with the heavier spring was filed a bit to get minimal engagement of the spring.
Kutter, I don't think that the post could be filed to accept the thicker spring. I'd end up pretty much eliminating anything to retain the end of the spring. The thicker spring seems to work okay with no binding, at least not that I noticed using a dowel to push the hammer back. Dimensionally the springs are very close to one another. I'll reassemble it to make sure there aren't any problems.
gunut, that's a good question. Both side plates were warped but the one with the heavier spring was worse. Maybe because of the poor engagement with the post????
My thoughts moving forward unless I'm told otherwise would be to straighten the plate and see if that improves spring engagement. Assuming it doesn't, I was thinking about filing the end of the spring to get it to fit.
Thanks for your help
Kirk
