Suggestions for new P64 owners....
Posted: July 1st, 2018, 1:51 pm
It's been 3 years since I posted here. At that time, I was selling 4 of my C&R pistols. All but 1 sold: a 1965 P64. This pistol had problems: the safety would fall to "safe" while firing, the magazine would drop after the last round was fired, and the slide would not stay open after the last round. This is an OLD pistol! The P64 was adopted by Poland in 1964 and this handgun was issued in 1965. It is the original, first design. I kept it because 1965 was the year I graduated from high school!!
The spring cleaning bug bit me hard this year so I was thumbing through some old papers in a gun folder. I came across an envelope addressed to me from one Norman E. Sutton of Lakeland, Florida! It was dated August 2016. Inside was a slide stop spring still taped to a sheet of paper containing instructions from Norm. I have no idea why I had not installed the spring. I don't even remember ordering it!
I was in a clean-up, fix-up mode, so I installed the "new" spring from Norm. I came back to this forum and followed the instructions on correcting the safety problem. I was hopeful my problems were solved and headed to the range. My safety now worked properly, but the slide and mag issues remained. After digging through the forum further, I decided to reinstall the original recoil spring and hammer spring. The recoil spring was easy, but the hammer spring was a different matter.
At one time I had 4 of these pistols and had replaced the hammer spring in each one. I did NOT keep the springs separated by weight and had to install and dry fire each spring until I found an original. SUGGESTION #1: keep any parts (like these springs) segregated and accurately marked! You'll regret it if you don't!
After reinstalling the original springs, I returned to the range and EUREKA! everything works!! SUGGESTION #2: when you get a new-to-you P64, don't change ANY unbroken springs until you have fired it! You may find that you need that benchmark. All of the individual parts are designed to work with each other. In my old pistol, the stiff double action trigger was necessary for everything else to work properly. I'm not having problems with the heavy trigger and I'm GLAD the single action trigger is less sensitive.
I'm one happy handgunner!
The spring cleaning bug bit me hard this year so I was thumbing through some old papers in a gun folder. I came across an envelope addressed to me from one Norman E. Sutton of Lakeland, Florida! It was dated August 2016. Inside was a slide stop spring still taped to a sheet of paper containing instructions from Norm. I have no idea why I had not installed the spring. I don't even remember ordering it!
I was in a clean-up, fix-up mode, so I installed the "new" spring from Norm. I came back to this forum and followed the instructions on correcting the safety problem. I was hopeful my problems were solved and headed to the range. My safety now worked properly, but the slide and mag issues remained. After digging through the forum further, I decided to reinstall the original recoil spring and hammer spring. The recoil spring was easy, but the hammer spring was a different matter.
At one time I had 4 of these pistols and had replaced the hammer spring in each one. I did NOT keep the springs separated by weight and had to install and dry fire each spring until I found an original. SUGGESTION #1: keep any parts (like these springs) segregated and accurately marked! You'll regret it if you don't!
After reinstalling the original springs, I returned to the range and EUREKA! everything works!! SUGGESTION #2: when you get a new-to-you P64, don't change ANY unbroken springs until you have fired it! You may find that you need that benchmark. All of the individual parts are designed to work with each other. In my old pistol, the stiff double action trigger was necessary for everything else to work properly. I'm not having problems with the heavy trigger and I'm GLAD the single action trigger is less sensitive.
I'm one happy handgunner!
)