Tilt spiral balance question

A home owner from Palatine Illinois says:
I've lived in my home for 5 years. The previously installed double hung tilt windows have never opened or closed up and down easily. I tried cleaning and lubricating with no luck. Each sash weighs 19.8 lbs. currently installed tilt balance spirals are 5/8" x 25" with BLACK tips. Seems those are for significantly heavier sashes. Could this be the issue? What color is recommend- seems both red and blue fit the weight but blue puts it more in the middle. Additionally I will be ordering pile and rubber weatherstripping that I successfully identified and measured using your site- so thank you. However I do need to identify these tilt latches though. Any help with the part number needed would be most helpful. Thank you once again!
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Tom from SWISCO responded:

Hello! Based on your measurements, it sounds like you have the S600-25 spiral balance. The black tip option is rated to hold 31 through 40 pounds, which is fairly heavy as far as tilt windows go. It's also well over your given sash weight of 19.8 pounds, so your assessment is accurate: the upward force provided by the balance is way too strong compared to the downward force provided by the weight of your sash.

I think the Red Tip would be better, which carries 7 through 29 pounds. That should be perfectly sufficient for the sash weight at hand. The Blue will also technically still work, but it's 20 cents more. Ultimately it's up to you.

That tilt latch, however, is beyond me. I've never seen a style like this before. It almost looks like a bolt you'd find on a storm window, but I've never seen such a thing used on this type of window before. It's very strange. Would you happen to know the manufacturer?

A home owner from Palatine Illinois says:
First of all, thank you for the super quick reply. I will have to keep searching for the latch as I cannot find any manufacturer info anywhere on any of the components. Luckily, I don't tilt the windows in very frequently so I can deal with it for now. I'd just like to open and close the sashes easily. My wife is pretty tiny so to make it easier, I believe I will select the red tips. No idea who put black ones in but it's sure made these windows nearly impossible to open and close lol.
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Tom from SWISCO responded:

Sounds good! I think that's the best plan. As for why the installers put in Black tips, it was probably because that was the only balance they had lying around and they just wanted to get the job done. That happens way more often than you'd think.

Best of luck with the project and please let me know if you had any other questions, especially if you wanted to try hunting down those latches at any point in the future. I can't guarantee that we can get them but I'd be happy to try my best, if you wanted to pursue that course.

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