Absconding absorber

[97nick]

Had a strange shoot on my last comp, didn't shoot well (yes it was me) but the first shot I fired the muzzle flipped. not on other shots, but twice I had shot and thought, "that's a good one" scoped it and it was in the 7 ring!

I have a LP10, its about 16 years old now or more, and I dont know the history of the gun, I haven't serviced it since I bought it about six months ago but I was told it had been serviced recently (aren't they all?)

anyway, after the shoot I took the grip off to look at how the Absorber was working, and it was only shooting back about a quater of an inch. when I bought the gun, it was shooting back as far as it would go, so I adjusted it as shown on the Styer Chanel on Youtube. checked it again a while later and it still wasn't right so adjusted it again, then it seemed to behave itself, but some times on a shot you could still feel the recoil, sometimes not.
so took it out to adjust it again and the tiny spring shot across the work shop, never to be found again :(
so I put it back together without the absorber.

I suppose a heavy piece of metal going backwards while the pellet is still in the barrel is going to cause problems if it not perfectly balanced. has anyone had any experience of this? the gun is shooting fine without it, it kicks now but it is no more than a thump and doesn't throw the gun off, and I dont have in the back of my head that it might not be working right.

I will get it refitted but will not do it until I can get it fitted professionally.
has anyone had experience of absorbers not behaving themselves? is it better not to have one?!

[Silvershooter]

I had the same experience as you with the absorber not being consistent, there is a discussion on TT on this topic.
The spring in the absorber needs to be adjusted from time to time as per the Steyr video.
Harry Preston can supply you with some new springs, there is a trick to doing this, having placed the springs on the absorber, put the plastic drag ring on top to hold them, then you need an O ring to hold the drag ring, then as you ease the absorber into the pistol you ease the O ring back.
Otherwise Harry will do it for you if you send it to him.

Reverse when you need to adjust the absorber, ease it out as you slide the O ring along the absorber to hold the drag ring.
Because of this issue I now shoot an LP2.

[Rover]

You can easily find the missing spring by walking around in your bare feet.

[Gwhite]

The approach that has always worked for me is to get down on my hands & knees with a large magnet. I have one taken from an old speaker system. Put the magnet in a small zip lock bag and scan that back & forth over the area of interest. You'd be amazed at how many small parts you can find that way, and in many instances, it will include the one you are looking for. Turn the bag inside out, and all the debris is captured and stays off the magnet for next time.

I once launched some small part across my apartment floor, which had deep shag carpeting. I found the part, and I also identified the area where a previous occupant had done all their sewing. I extracted about 30 pins from the carpet in one section. Fortunately, it wasn't a region I ever traversed in bare feet...

The bad news is that this doesn't work with modern parts of aluminum or plastic. I catapulted the plastic grip spacer from a Benelli MP90S across my shop once, and it took about 2 hours to find, despite being large & red.

One other word of warning: If you use the magnet-search technique, you need some means of demagnetizing the part afterward. If the part gets magnetized (which it usually will), it will tend to attract small iron/steel particles, which can cause all sorts of issues.

[northpaw]

I had the same experience as you with the absorber not being consistent, there is a discussion on TT
...
Because of this issue I now shoot an LP2.

Absorbers introduse a new variable. Ok whenever they work as intended. With age and wear they grow inconsistent, and may reduce your scores significantly.

4 years back i bought a brand new FWB 44, and its absorber started to behave "on its own" after a few months. Got a replacement, an improved version of the absorbers front part. Same problem showed up after a brief period. Got rid of that gun...