Quick answer: Clipboards and Battered Clipboards are the best reliable spring source — 1 spring at only 0.2 lb (5 springs per pound). For a dedicated farm, clear Sugar Grove in the Savage Divide for roughly 30 clipboards per server hop, hit Camp McClintock for its Battered Clipboard clusters, and buy Bulk Springs directly from Grahm the wandering vendor when you need an instant top-up.
Why Springs Are Always Running Low in 2026
Springs are a crafting component used across weapon modifications, Power Armor mods, and C.A.M.P. structures in Fallout 76. According to the official Fallout Wiki, "Springs are devices, typically a coil made of steel, that can store mechanical energy. They are an uncommon component used primarily for crafting and repairing Power Armor and weapons and crafting weapon modifications and C.A.M.P. equipment such as Turrets."
That word "uncommon" is the problem. Springs do not drop from enemies and they are not looted from corpses. Every spring you own was stripped from junk — which means you have to know which junk to pick up and which locations have the highest density of it.
The demand pressure has increased in Season 26 "Beware the Blood Moon!" with The Slasher (Update 28, September 15, 2026) adding new unique weapons to pursue. Players actively modding out suppressed rifles, builds experimenting with stabilized stock configurations, and CAMP builders adding auto-turret clusters are all burning through spring reserves faster than a single adventuring session refills them. Players on r/fo76 regularly note they have their weapon crafting halted not by Legendary Cores or modules, but by spring supply running dry.
The good news: springs are farmable, fast to collect, and concentrated in a handful of reliable spots. This guide covers the full strategy — which junk to take, which to leave, and the three most efficient sources in the current game state.
Springs by Weight: What Junk to Pick Up
The most important decision in spring farming is not where to go — it is what to grab. Every point of carry weight spent on junk should return as many springs as possible. Use this verified weight efficiency table from the Fallout Wiki to decide on the fly:
| Junk Item | Springs | Weight | Springs/lb |
|---|---|---|---|
| Loose Spring | 1 | 0.1 lb | 10 |
| Clipboard | 1 | 0.2 lb | 5 |
| Battered Clipboard | 1 | 0.2 lb | 5 |
| Grey & Gould Pocket Watch | 2 | 0.5 lb | 4 |
| Clean Umbrella | 1 | 1.5 lb | 0.67 |
| Flip Lighter | 1 | 0.5 lb | 2 |
| Handcuffs | 1 | 0.5 lb | 2 |
| Gold Pocket Watch | 1 | 0.5 lb | 2 |
| Vault-Tec Alarm Clock | 2 | 1 lb | 2 |
| Giddyup Buttercup Leg | 2 | 1.5 lb | 1.3 |
| Alarm Clock | 1 | 1 lb | 1 |
| Giddyup Buttercup (full) | 2 | 8 lb | 0.25 |
| Carlisle Typewriter | 1 | 5 lb | 0.2 |
Source: fallout.wiki, Spring (Fallout 76)
The takeaways are straightforward. Loose Springs are the jackpot pick at 10 springs per pound, but they spawn rarely as freestanding items. Clipboards and Battered Clipboards at 5 springs per pound are your bread-and-butter farm target — common, predictable, and light. Grey & Gould Pocket Watches at 4 springs per pound are worth grabbing when you spot them.
Skip the full Giddyup Buttercup body (2 springs, 8 lb — 0.25 springs per pound) and any typewriter unless you are standing next to a workbench. A backpack full of clipboards will always outperform a backpack full of typewriters.
Route 1: Sugar Grove — Best Spring Farming Location in Fallout 76
Sugar Grove is a Naval Radio Station in the Savage Divide region. It is the single best spring farming location in Fallout 76 in 2026 and it doubles as one of the top screw farms in the game — fans scattered through the building also yield screws, making every clear a dual-resource run.
What to expect: A full interior clear yields roughly 30 clipboards distributed across three floors and a server room section, for approximately 30 springs per server hop. You will also collect 4–6 fans, which strip into screws for a secondary crafting material bonus.
How to run it:
Enter from the main ground-floor entrance and clear the Liberators and security robots working room to room. Do not rush — every room has desks, shelving units, and filing cabinets where clipboards and files appear. The server room in the lower level is often overlooked but has additional clipboard spawns on equipment consoles.
Once the building is fully cleared, look for any fans on office equipment shelves. Server-hop immediately after clearing. Sugar Grove is a full instance reset on each new server — no waiting for respawn timers. With fast travel, two to three clears per session is easily achievable in twenty minutes, producing 60 to 90 springs from the clipboard route alone.
If you are also on a screw shortage, Sugar Grove is genuinely one of the most efficient combination runs in the game. The aluminum farming route at Abandoned Mine Shaft 1 and the ski pole corridor requires separate routing — Sugar Grove compresses both springs and screws into a single location.
Route 2: Camp McClintock — Battered Clipboard Clusters
Camp McClintock is a pre-war military training facility in the southern Forest region. The range, barracks, and admin buildings across the facility are stocked with Battered Clipboards — the weathered variant of the standard clipboard, which scraps for the identical 1 spring at 0.2 lb.
Unlike Sugar Grove, Camp McClintock requires no heavy robot-clearing to access the loot. The training grounds and barrack interiors are open-air or lightly guarded, making the clipboard collection straightforward. The facility is also accessible very early in a character's progression — no high-level prerequisites or gear requirements.
This is the best secondary stop after a Sugar Grove clear if you are still short of your target spring count, or a useful fallback when Sugar Grove is packed on a busy server. The Camp McClintock clipboard density is lower than Sugar Grove but the faster move-through time compensates on quick runs.
A combined Sugar Grove and Camp McClintock circuit on a two-server rotation can consistently produce 50 to 70 springs per session, enough to keep most mid-tier crafting and CAMP build projects supplied without stockpiling anxiety.
Route 3: Grahm's Bulk Springs — Buy Direct
Grahm is a wandering Super Mutant merchant who travels Appalachia with his brahmin companion Chally the Moo-Moo. He is one of the only vendors in the game who stocks Bulk Springs as a direct purchasable item — 10 springs per Bulk Spring unit, sold for caps.
This is the fastest acquisition method for players who are caps-flush and need to close a specific spring deficit immediately. If you are 30 springs short of being able to craft a full suppressor set or finish a CAMP turret installation, Grahm can resolve that gap in one vendor interaction.
Grahm's patrol path wanders through the southern Forest region. He passes through areas near Flatwoods, Morgantown, and the surrounding settlements. He does not have a fixed spawn location — find him by watching for the caravan on the roads through The Forest, or consult the community map markers that track his current position on any given server.
To locate Grahm on a given server, the most reliable method is to watch the roads between Flatwoods and Morgantown — his caravan moves at a walking pace and is visible on the road if you travel by foot or keep an eye on the compass. Alternatively, server-hop two to three times with fast travel set to a Forest waypoint; Grahm respawns at the start of his patrol on each new instance and is usually findable within two server hops at most.
Grahm also sells the Plan: Crossbow and other plans that the fixed vendors do not reliably stock, so cross-referencing his inventory when you find him is always worthwhile.
What Uses Springs in the Current Meta
Knowing your spring demand helps you decide how large a stockpile to maintain:
Weapon suppressors and stock mods: Any rifle or pistol build that runs a silenced barrel needs springs to craft and repair the suppressor mod. Stabilized stocks and certain receiver modifications also list springs in their crafting cost. Builds like the Crossbow or Pepper Shaker that cycle through mod configurations when experimenting with roll combinations use springs faster than players expect.
C.A.M.P. turrets: Machine gun turrets, Laser turrets, and the heavier CAMP defensive options require springs in their crafting recipe. Building out a defended base with multiple turret emplacements creates a meaningful initial spring outlay.
Power Armor modifications: Frame mods, jetpack components, and certain limb modifications include springs in their material lists. Power Armor builders often discover a spring shortage mid-construction when swapping mod configurations.
Legendary module crafting: Players grinding the Season 26 crafting economy for The Slasher-related unique weapons are modding more frequently as they try different weapon configurations — each mod swap consumes the crafting materials again.
For an active crafter running a suppressed rifle build and maintaining a turret-equipped CAMP, a working reserve of 150 to 200 springs is a comfortable buffer. Farms two to three times per week keeps that reserve stable.
Weight Management Tips for Spring Runs
The weight efficiency advice above covers what to pick up. These tips help you carry more per run:
Pack Rat (Strength perk, Rank 3): Reduces the weight of all junk items by 75 percent. A Rank 3 Pack Rat installation turns a clipboard from 0.2 lb to 0.05 lb and makes running out of carry capacity on a clipboard run practically impossible. This is the single highest-return perk for any junk farming session, including the aluminum ski pole route and the ballistic fiber military base circuits.
Junk scrapping at C.A.M.P.: Raw junk items almost always weigh more than their scrapped component output. If you are carrying full clipboards back to a vendor, scrap them at your CAMP weapons workbench before moving on. The resulting loose spring components weigh 0.1 lb each — lighter than the 0.2 lb clipboard they came from.
Stash box allocation: The shared junk weight cap in your stash fills quickly during multi-material farming sessions. Springs are light enough that 200 of them cost only 20 lb of stash capacity. Dedicate a portion of your stash to keep a standing reserve and scrapping junk when you return to base keeps the cap from blocking you mid-run.
Shared Inventory (high-Intelligence builds): Players with a team member running Inspirational or similar Charisma perks should coordinate junk allocation — the pack that carries clipboards during a shared farm can offload to the teammate with more carry weight open before the next server hop.
Frequently Asked Questions
Where is the best place to farm springs in Fallout 76 in 2026? Sugar Grove in the Savage Divide is the top dedicated spring farm — roughly 30 clipboards per full interior clear, plus fans for screws. Server-hop after each clear for a full reset. Camp McClintock in The Forest is a strong secondary option for its Battered Clipboard density in the training grounds and barracks.
What junk has the most springs per pound? Loose Springs at 0.1 lb (10 springs per pound) are the best per-weight find, but they spawn infrequently as standalone items. Clipboards and Battered Clipboards at 0.2 lb (5 springs per pound) are the most reliable consistent source and spawn in predictable high densities at Sugar Grove and Camp McClintock.
Does Grahm sell springs directly? Yes. Grahm the wandering Super Mutant vendor stocks Bulk Springs — 10 springs per unit — for caps. He roams the southern Forest region and is the fastest vendor option for immediately closing a specific spring shortage without running a farming route.
Should I pick up typewriters for springs? No. Carlisle Typewriters yield only 1 spring at 5 lb — 0.2 springs per pound. That is one of the worst spring-per-weight ratios in the game. Skip them entirely and stick to clipboards, watches, and lighters. The same logic applies to the full Giddyup Buttercup body (2 springs, 8 lb).
How many springs should I keep in my stash? For an active crafter modding weapons and running a turret-equipped CAMP, a reserve of 150 to 200 springs handles most mid-week demand without requiring emergency farm runs. If you are doing heavy legendary module work or experimenting with multiple weapon mod configurations, push that reserve toward 300 to avoid running dry at the crafting bench.
Can springs be bought from regular robot vendors at train stations? Standard vendor bots at train stations and faction vendors do not reliably stock springs or Bulk Springs. Grahm is the most consistent vendor source. Player-vendor stalls near the Whitespring Resort sometimes carry loose springs or small stacks, but supply varies by server.
For other crafting material guides in this lane:
- Fallout 76 Aluminum Farming Guide 2026 — ski pole corridor, Excavator PA ore bonus, Abandoned Mine Shaft 1
- Fallout 76 Ballistic Fiber Farming Guide 2026 — military hardware stashes and the best base clear routes
- Fallout 76 Crossbow Build 2026 — suppressed crossbow setup that burns through springs on bolt crafting and suppressor mods
- Fallout 76 Pepper Shaker Build 2026 — multi-barrel shotgun build with heavy mod configuration demands
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- All Timesaver.gg Fallout 76 services — progression help across builds, events, and gear
