Re: Spring in magazine tube.... and HD status?
I like nitesights recommendation of keeping the hammer in the uncocked position. That's how I do it and learned that the hard way.
Although some would say that will destroy your firing pin, the way I do it, is not close the bolt all the way and then pull the trigger and let the hammer follow the bolt closed so it doesn't swing so far before being "caught" by the bolt.
I do this with all of my weapons. When you cycle the action to load it, you're going to be cocking it anyway.
There are a couple of trains of thoughts about springs, but I tend to keep my springs (even hammer spring) with no tension on them while stored.
Last year, I had a weak hammer spring causing light primer strikes and I think it was due to keeping it cocked for a very long time.
After all, it worked flawlessly the last time I used it prior to putting it up, and when I tried to use it after that, some of them would fire and some wouldn't. It wasn't ammo related. So that made me believe the spring tried to take a "set", which reduced some of its' tension. I have no other logical explanation for it. The gun was clean, the firing pin was fine, no fouling in the firing pin channel, 2nd time the bullets were struck with the hammer, they fired fine. Replaced the hammer spring, everything was good again.