Your right about being able to buy a replacement part but what your buying is the whole "hand" with the spring installed into it.I am all for getting my money's worth and warranties, but the part is only 5 or 6 bucks, order by phone or on line and in a week you will be shooting again. Its going to take longer than that to ship the pistol back to the company. But you are right arcticap I also would like to know how long it will take the company to send it back.
While it is easy to replace the existing hand with the broken spring in it with the replacement part, the replacement will be longer than the existing one.
That will make it try to turn the cylinder past the place where the cylinder bolt locks up the cylinder so that the chamber is aligned with the bore.
The "fix" involves removing a little bit of the material on the end of the hand so it stops turning the cylinder at the same time that the cylinder "lock up" happens.
I don't know if railshot wants to go thru that process. I do know that not everyone wants to have to machine a new part to get their gun working so for them, sending it back to be fixed is probably the best solution.