Spring stretcher

Doc, thanks again the interest and the reply. Your way is better. I'm so used to mickey-mousin' it here (PVC is EVERYWHERE) that I forgot about the bolt-thru-the-inside way. I can get a long bolt, washers and nuts at one of the hardwares. Some things they can do, but it took me 4 stops and a 'reference-request' the other day just to get a piece of screen to replace the one in my screen-door, which my psycho Husky puppy went THROUGH last week.
I looked at the spring again this morning, it's not as badly stretched as I thought. Without the cylinder next to it, it looks long, but placed beside the cylinder it's only 9-10cm longer and that's if I 'allow' by eye for the cylinder head and the guide base. I'll let it settle for another day, as I have the final sanding & painting of the grip to get done today, so reassembly will be done, hopefully, tomorrow. I appreciate the advice.

doc, it's sort of hard to believe. Shops can order certain items but not others. They can order at certain times of the month, but not others. A shop in Bangkok sold me a pair of valves for my KJ Works Mk! pistol (the Ruger .22 copy) but they could not order any grip mods for it....their explanation was that [those items] were on a 'different license' (translated: different shop supplier controlling specific items for the shops in their area). Kinda like the old mafiosa neighborhoods.....except these bozos were not that well organized... ...I swear, at times it's pretty obvious that the shops here are set-up to make X amount of money in a set time, but not to make as much as they can, hence the limitations...
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Gonna paste some pics and text about the grip mod I've been doing the past week...hopefully get that up tomorrow.
Wanted to finish it today but there's been a problem with some inconsistent curing in the material.

Would you be able to maybe make your own spring?

You could get another spring and heat it up until it was red and then let it cool down, where you could straighten it and then wrap it around something of the same diameter as your spring guide. You could then stretch it to the appropriate length, cut the ends and bend them flat, and then heat treat it. For heat treating a charcoal grill would probably do well, but if you have a torch with enough output you could make a little box out of wet wood and heat up the whole spring inside of that. Once it is bright red/doesn't stick to a magnet, quickly submerge it in some sort of warm oil and then temper it. To temper it, heat it to like 450° F for an hour, then repeat that. There's YouTube videos that may be a little better on this subject, just search "how to make a spring"
Worth a try if it's rather difficult to get a spring, and if not you aren't out much of any money.

Out of curiosity, do you know what a 5.56X45mm and a 9X19mm bullet cost in Thailand? I like to get an idea of ammo pricing around the world, and there is little internet info on the subject of Thailand.

I don't have anywhere near the tools/facilities I'd need, so creating a spring is impossible. Thanks for the idea, though. I finally found some places for parts but they're in Bangkok, and their idea of serving customers is to sell what they have in stock and not order or research anything. The same shop from which I've already gotten a steel sear/trigger set, buckings (FINALLY!) and magazine valves for my JW Works MK1 cannot sell, or order for me, a TDC kit. The shop here in Khon Kaen from whom I purchased this spring and barrel can't/won't order parts either, hence my having to get the buckings from the shop in BKK. It's all in who controls their supplies and has contracts with whom, etc etc. Ridiculous. But if I can get another spring, I'd just order the right size/strength. This was just an experiment to try and restore some of the spring's strength, as it seemed to have weakened, after 8-9k shots, judging by bags of ammo used since I installed it. The stretching attempt has gone slightly awry, but I'll fix it.
As for the centerfire ammo, as a foreigner you couldn't buy guns OR ammo here. REAL Guns are only possessed by the police/military, etc., or the connected and wealthy few who can belong to shooting clubs, which are run by the police in each 'amphur' (county). Firearms ownership by foreigners is expressly forbidden. [ Ironic, that, as I was licensed in two states at home, and in terms of just firearms, had comparable training to the police here, and was not many hours away from qualifying for my AZ Firearms Safety Instructor license.] When I bought my Snow Wolf, and later my MK1 pistol, I had to register them both in my wife's name, as she is a Thai national. All that for AIRSOFT guns.
This tight restriction on ALL types of 'guns' is why my Hatsan 125 is still sitting on a shelf at Bangkok customs since 6/2021. The gun itself is technically 'allowable', but importing it needed lots of paperwork and "tea money" of which I was not aware. And that's just an air-rifle.
Some folks aren't aware of what living in a (literal) police state is like. I am, and that's why I urge people (at home) to get out and vote! 👍

So, I popped into a local hardware store here, where the owner knows me and treats me a bit special, as he'd previously lived in the states. He let me buy a special 'hook', shaped like a capital 'L' with an upturned bit at the short end, which is used to hold roof tiles on the houses here and is usually sold by the kilo, never singly, for a few baht. It's about 11" long on the long end and threaded. So I clamped the short end with some vise-grips, put a washer on then put the spring on, and added another washer and nut. Then tightened it down to a bit below the length it would be in the cylinder. Set overnight. Next day, it had re-compressed to about 2": longer than the cylinder, which is about what I was going for in the first place. I cleaned it, sprayed MOS2 lube all over it, reinstalled it and it's shooting great!! (bangs on the desktop...)
The grip I built, and for which I'd had the rifle apart, seemed to have settled in, so I sprayed it with some undercoating I had, a very durable type of outdoor-rated coating, (actually it's vehicle 'under-coating'). So it's not beautiful but WOW! does it feel
better compared to the stock 'grip'.

Stock


Frankenstein's dentures...