New Member with a sad story

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Zona
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Joined: March 10th, 2012, 9:06 pm

New Member with a sad story

Post by Zona »

Hello all, a minute to introduce myself. My name is Dave and I have been a firearms owner/cc'r for the last 5 years. I don't claim to be an expert, but I have shot quite a lot, and am very careful in my practice and carry.

I bought a '74 p-64 a few days ago after finding this site. I thought it was a great little carry piece for when I couldn't carry one of my more substantial sidearms. The price was right at about 220 bucks local, and from what everyone says about them, they are accurate and reliable.

I can confirm the gun I bought is accurate, at least with the hornady 94 grains, I didn't seem to get quite as good of results with the brown bear ammo. But I digress. I had a failure that would deem this pistol unfit for carry(according to my personal standards) on my very first outing to the range. I am not 100% sure to the why of what happend, but I can tell you what happened.

I had an Accidental Discharge whilst at the firing range doing a function test to clear it for my carry rotation. I had already fired a few magazines though it, and was in the midst of reloading the pistol. My procedure was this: insert loaded mag, drop safety (decocking pistol), remove mag, top off mag, re-insert mag, take safety off, pull back hammer, fire as usual.
Apparently the slide had hung up about a quarter of an inch back from battery or less, and as I began pulling back on the hammer, the slide returned to full battery and the hammer came loose from under my thumb and fired off a round, leaving me with a nasty bite. At no point did my finger touch the trigger.
I fired some more afterward (with great hesitation) and sure enough, the slide hung up again, at which point I cleared the gun.
I did not join your forum to bash this little gun, or your preference for it, I just thought that I would be doing an injustice if I didn't let you guys know that this CAN happen under the right circumstances.
Carry on, and be safe. :hi:
PA-Joe
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Re: New Member with a sad story

Post by PA-Joe »

Glad to here that you are ok and that no one got hurt.

Is it possible that the hollow points where catching on the chamber or ramp and not going into full battery? Why where you pulling the hammer back, these are double action? Was the gun and the firing pin channel fully cleaned before you started using the pistol? If the firing pin channel was not fully cleaned the firing pin could have gottent stuck in the fire position.
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p64-1973
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Re: New Member with a sad story

Post by p64-1973 »

I don't know for sure why the slide did not go fully back into battery, but it sounds like that is the reason why the whole discharge happened. I would not try to pull back on the hammer without the slide all the way back into battery myself. Maybe you just did not notice it.
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Curly1
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Re: New Member with a sad story

Post by Curly1 »

Welcome to the forums Dave and thanx for sharing that info.

Can you reproduce the slide hangs with snap caps?

Did you shoot any round nose ammo?
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Zona
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Re: New Member with a sad story

Post by Zona »

PA-Joe : The event happened while I was using the Brown Bear FMJs. I had already given up on the double action trigger, at least until I could get the main spring change done. I did a field strip basic clean and lube before taking it to the range.

p64-1973 : Yea, I did not notice that it did not go into battery when it AD'd, but I you can be sure I was paying close attention afterward!

Curly1 : Thanks! Unfortunately, I don't own any snap caps at this time, and yeah, I shot both round nose FMJs and JHP's. The AD occured with the FMJ's.
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badgerjfr
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Re: New Member with a sad story

Post by badgerjfr »

i have noticed my p-64 (1969) did hang up a little when manually jacking the first round in position. i was too gentile. ive never had a problem sinse then. i pull the slide all the way back and let it snap forward in a very quick motion. i always have the safety on when not ready to fire. and ive never had a problem with any ammo cycling itself through the gun. theyre old guns and things tend to wear funny. and yes. it can happen.
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klink140
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Re: New Member with a sad story

Post by klink140 »

I my humble opinion, this was probably a normal kind of failure for something mechanical that has likely been in storage for a long time and not used. When mechanical things sit for long periods, they change. I did the mainspring job on mine right out of the box before I even shot it. Even with the new spring, I noticed after about 200 to 300 rounds through it, that it was firing and operating smoother. Something I did that might help prevent this kind of failure on other "right out of the box" P64's, was that I oiled the holy crap out of it as I was using it. No special oil, just a can of white label generic American military surplus gun oil I got at a gun show. While I was shooting it, I used a lot more oil than I would use on my newer firearms. I don't store my weapons like that, however, during operation I think of a firearm as an engine. Heat, friction, etc, can all lead to mechanical failure without oil. When I was done, cleaned it up, stored it with minimal lubrication. I'm not saying my way is the right way. I did not have any failures like described, and these are the things that I did that may have been different. Stay safe. Zona's example though is a great reminder for anyone on the first rule of firearm safety though...ALWAYS keep the gun pointed in a safe direction.
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fully machined
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Re: New Member with a sad story

Post by fully machined »

One thing I have noticed about the P-64 is the amount of effort necessary to fully retract the slide. I have observed this with 18, 20, and 22 pound recoil springs and a 18 pound and stock hammer spring. This is especially noticed when the slide gets on the hammer and begins the cocking action. To me it feels like it is two stage--- pullback to the hammer is one and over the hammer is two. I also believe that because of this it is not a good idea to lighten the trigger spring without increasing the recoil spring as total recoil mannagement would be reduced. It is easy to short stroke my P-64 because of this. Thanks badgerjfr for this and I agree. I hope you just short stroked it. Welcome and thanks for the input.
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Re: New Member with a sad story

Post by DocCasualty »

Zona, you mentioned that you only field-stripped and cleaned this gun. I don't know what condition you received this piece in, but if it was never completely stripped down and thoroughly cleaned, you are asking for problems. These pistols were packed in some of the thickest grease I have ever seen, or at least mine was when I purchased it a couple of years ago. I had never taken a pistol down so completely before and was amazed at how thick this gunk was everywhere in hidden places. My apologies for sounding pedantic if this doesn't apply to your situation, but I've heard of it solving a multitude of problems with the CZAK.


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normsutton
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Re: New Member with a sad story

Post by normsutton »

one more time
normsutton wrote:99% of the time the reason these guns don't work is that they have not been cleaned, they are full of cosmoline , take the slide off and the grips and soak over night in a pan of kerosene,diesel fuel , or paint thinner ( do not soak the grips in the pan) spray down with brake cleaner or WD40 , whip it down and re oil and put a little grease on the rails
, then gun put gun back together ,

(there are other was to take cosmoline off of guns but it is must be fore you ever shoot the gun's and rifles)
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RobsTV
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Re: New Member with a sad story

Post by RobsTV »

That sounds almost exactly like what happened to me a couple weeks ago.
Have fired hundreds of rounds through before trying this new method.
Now I no longer trust this safety system, so don't use it or keep gun in a manor that requires using safety.

Posted in another thread about concealed carry, and here is copy and paste:



Trying the one in the chamber with safety on, and ran into a problem.

Preparing to fire, turned off safety, cocked hammer, and the gun instantly went off. Pistol jumped out of my hand onto ground. As usual, it was safely pointed downrange. I am almost positive hammer was all the way back to click and did not slip, or it happened while I was still pulling back the hammer. It was almost as if the firing pin was stuck and released after moving safety lever, striking primer. Nothing seems unusual, and no issues firing after that. Safety lever moves properly and looks like all is working like it is supposed to.

Prior to this, I did replace firing pin spring and recoil spring, as well as safety catch.
Tested a couple times at the range, and all seemed to work well.
stonecutter2
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Re: New Member with a sad story

Post by stonecutter2 »

My P64 from 1974 got hung up the exact same way as the OP. I did not have an AD though.

Upon examining the breech face, there is a polygonal punch in the steel that looks like someone let the slide slip while reassembling, striking the breech face and making an imprint. Upon closer examination, that "punch" in the steel actually makes the steel intrude upon the chamber. I've read on here of others having a similar mark on their P64's.

I suspect the round of ammo got hung up on this little indentation near the base, making the case stick just enough to not return to full battery. At the slightest nudge, it would unstick and then return to battery - but I didn't fire the pistol again. The sticking happened on my 2nd magazine through the pistol.

Thankfully my pistol reacted to this situation by the trigger not being reset to fire again (which is when i noticed the slide not returned to battery).

I intend to file down the protruding steel in the chamber, polish things up, and do a full break down to see if there's anything else going on.

As has been said, these are surplus arms and need to be treated accordingly. Be wary when shooting them, inspect for "weird" things, check your spent shell casings.
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Curly1
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Re: New Member with a sad story

Post by Curly1 »

My guess is when disassembling/reassembling the slide to the frame that the slide might have slipped out of the hand and slammed into the breech gouging it.
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