The Unofficial P64 Resource Forum

Hi all, got my P64 in the other day. Honestly gun looks basically new.

I've noticed two things that are a bit odd to me, first it's very difficult to rack the slide when the hammer is down. Second the safety seems difficult to flip back and forth.

For the slide, is this due to the heavy hammer spring or possibly my recoil spring? I've got the wolff springs on the way if that's all it is. I've already added some grease to the slide rails, etc to help it glide but still stiff.

For the safety, it could just be naturally more difficult to flip the safety on and off than I thought. Or it could be this hasn't been fired much. I've tried getting some oil into where I see the safety moving in the slide and that helped a little bit, but not much. Is it expected that the safety is particularly tough to flip?

Thanks in advance. The pistol itself looks great and I'm hoping to shoot it soon.

For the slide, make sure the recoil spring is flipped the right way. The tight end of the coils is supposed to be on the barrel where it meets the breech, and the looser coils towards the muzzle. Also, if the grips are screwed on too tight, it can cause problems with mag release and sear movement.

As for the safety, common issue apparently. The only real way to resolve this is to smooth/polish the safety detent and make sure it's well lubed (this is a little nub that sits on the end of a spring, inside the slide, that slides in and out of a detent).

snailman153624 wrote: ↑June 9th, 2018, 12:01 amAs for the safety, common issue apparently. The only real way to resolve this is to smooth/polish the safety detent and make sure it's well lubed (this is a little nub that sits on the end of a spring, inside the slide, that slides in and out of a detent).

But not to much mind you. Also you can shorten the detent spring, again not to much. If you take to much off of either, the Safety will flip on while shooting , etc, etc.

With the hammer spring some have had light strikes with the 17lb ones. I suggest starting at 18lbs and going up if you get light strikes. The multi pak is worth it for that.

Also if you got a new Wolff Recoil Spring; Do NOT force the Slide on with it if it does feel like it should go. You probably will need to flatten the ends of the Spring. There are a few threads on this...

Thanks I'll take a look at those. And yeah definitely went with the packs to figure out what works best.

Welcome to the forum Michael, let us know how you make out.

I likely won't get a chance to try to polish the safety any until this weekend at earliest. I do think having the recoil spring on backwards was part of my problem with the heavy slide.

I got the hammer springs in and got the stock hammer spring off but cannot find a good way to get the new hammer spring down low enough to put something in the slot while I put the pin back into the gun and through the hole in the mag release. Any tips there?

Pin it with a paper clip. There are very good How To videos on YouTube. Use your Google-fu to find them.

BeoBill wrote: ↑June 11th, 2018, 5:41 pm Pin it with a paper clip. There are very good How To videos on YouTube. Use your Google-fu to find them.

I've seen that but not sure if I can push it down far enough to paper clip it by hand. Will give that a shot though.

I've had good luck with seating the hammer strut on it's pivot and using the mag catch itself to compress the spring. I basically just grip the (unloaded ) gun upside down and use my thumb to press in. (A strip of masking tape works to keep skin getting caught between spring coils.)

I typically bypass the paperclip in the retaining hole, and paperclip (or 1/16" punch) the actual pin-hole. Leave just a hair of tool sticking out on the far side of the frame, and chase the tool out with the pin.