My favorite Shiloh sharps was suffering from a droopy lever, so I figured that the lever spring cracked and went to put in the replacement spring. Only to find out the spring was in one piece but lost its tension and was slightly out of the curve it should be in. So, I got it back into shape, but it only lasted a couple of range trips. I've got the new spring in place and its working fine and ordered two more spares but is there any way I can re temper the old spring, so I don't have to pay another 50.00 bucks next time I run out of spares?

Depends on the alloy, but for most steels that make good springs…

Heat it thoroughly until a magnet won’t stick to it, then quench in vegetable oil.  It’ll be very hard at that point, and will break if you bend it.  Do this outside because it’ll make a schload of smoke when you quench it.   

Next step is to temper it, and this is where various alloys differ more so than the hardening part.  My preferred method is to dunk it in molten lead when I’m casting bullets.  Leave it in the lead pot for about 10 minutes, and it’ll be a spring when it cools off.  Second favorite method is to temper it in a toaster oven in my shop (usually at about 500 degrees) and let cool slowly.  Least favorite is all the old wives tales about cover in oil and burn off the oil, etc.

1Hawkeye wrote on Feb 6^th, 2026 at 7:04pm:


Are you absolutely certain it's not cracked.  I've cracked three so far in my Shiloh 1874.  Two broke completely.  The other was not obviously cracked until I put in in a vice and put pressure on it.  Only then did the crack show up.  I assume you did not purchase the rifle directly from Shiloh.  If you did the springs are replaced for free since the rifle comes with a lifetime warranty (original owner).  Shiloh replaced all three of my springs for free & no shipping charge.

Wayne

Wow, you guys are luckier than me.  

I use to use the oil burn off method for small spring, got great results and never had many problems.  

I used the lead method until I had a large main spring, I had to make, break 3 times!  That was covered in my thread on the Sharps Pistol Rifle build.  Lead melts at 620 but I held my lead temp, as well as I could, at 650 and soaked the spring for 25-30 minutes, still broke them.

I now have a furnace that hold temps pretty steady once it stabilizes, and I now temper all my springs at 690-700 with zero issues.  I know others here on this board go as high as 750.
I make all my springs from either 1075 or 1080.

I would say, what do you have to lose by trying a rehardening?  The worst that will happen is it doesn’t work but on the plus side you learn something.
Anneal the spring.
Reharden, take it to critical then quench.
Temper at 700 in a controlled lead bath, submerged for as long as you can.  I soak mine in the furnace for a hour.
Bob