Board Thread:General Nerf discussion/@comment-27125665-20191218124759/@comment-27125665-20191219143036

Elliottw wrote: Okay, I'll take a stab at it. The spring property you're referring to is called "deformation", which is defined as a change in the shape or performance of a spring. And for the sake of this discussion, let's just talk about helical (coiled) springs like the blaster main spring, not follower springs or the constant-force springs in drums.

First of all, momentary compression of springs doesn't decrease their strength as long as you don't exceed their "elastic limit" (aka the maximum you can stretch or compress a spring before damaging the material or altering its performance). For example, many springs in machines made in the 1800's that have been momentarily compressed hundreds of thousands of times are still working perfectly today.

But when compressed for long periods of time, coiled springs can undergo deformation, especially if they're near their elastic limit. The quality of the metal has a big impact on how quickly and how much they deform, and unfortunately Nerf springs are low quality. When compressed, the arrangement of the atoms in the metal starts to bend as time goes by. The longer it's compressed, the more they bend and it gets less and less springy, or temporarily deformed.

When you leave a coiled spring at rest, it naturally wants to return to its original size. If it's deformed as a result of being compressed for a long time, it may take an equally long time for the spring to fully relax and return to its original shape. Assuming you haven't exceeded its elastic limit, which is not a problem for Nerf blasters, it will eventually fully recover all by itself.

So the good news is, leaving your blaster primed for a long period doesn't actually ruin the spring. But if you left your blaster primed for a year, it might take another year before the spring is fully recovered and all the metal atoms return to their original orientations.

But that process isn't linear. It's a curve that depends on the properties of the metal. A spring that's been compressed for a whole year might regain 95% of its strength within a few hours, and 97% within a week. And at 4 months it might be at 99.999% of its original strength. (Those aren't real numbers, just a hypothetical example)

As I said earlier, Nerf springs aren't very high quality. They're likely to deform quicker, and recover slower than commercial and industrial springs like a K26. So for optimal performance don't leave your Nerf blasters primed, or leave darts in your clips/drums/magazines. But even if you do, there's no permanent damage.

Hopefully that answered your question. Thanks for the lesson!