This may be old hat to many of you, but it is new to me and I thought worth posting. There are two ways to store spring energy in an airgun, a low rate spring with a lot of preload, or a higher rate spring with less preload. I just happened to have a pair of spring setups for my short stroke TX200HC that store close to the same energy, and here is the comparison in numbers.
The OEM spring is stiffer but with less preload, so there is more of a difference in initial and final loads. The Vortek spring is less stiff but with more preload, and has less of a difference in initial and final loads. I prefer the more uniform cocking force of the Vortek spring. It is just easier and more pleasant to cock and stores the same energy as the OEM spring. The Vortek spring is also lighter, and the kit uses a plastic top hat, which seems to reduce recoil somewhat. And for whatever reason, the Vortek spring proved more efficient in transferring energy to the pellet. All improvements in my book over the OEM setup. Although to be fair the OEM configuration was intended to provide maximum power using a long stroke piston.
The OEM spring is stiffer but with less preload, so there is more of a difference in initial and final loads. The Vortek spring is less stiff but with more preload, and has less of a difference in initial and final loads. I prefer the more uniform cocking force of the Vortek spring. It is just easier and more pleasant to cock and stores the same energy as the OEM spring. The Vortek spring is also lighter, and the kit uses a plastic top hat, which seems to reduce recoil somewhat. And for whatever reason, the Vortek spring proved more efficient in transferring energy to the pellet. All improvements in my book over the OEM setup. Although to be fair the OEM configuration was intended to provide maximum power using a long stroke piston.