P-64 Springs -The strongest recoil reduction available?

[robhic]

This is a bit disappointing. Took the 2 granddudes out today and we had a virtual "P-64-a-Thon". Oldest boy (20) loved it and couldn't shoot it enough. Younger (13) complained about recoil even with Hogue sleeve and fingerless glove to mitigate it. I'm not sure what else to do but tell him to "suck it up, dude!"

He's whined about 38spl in the past and the glove seemed to fix that. He shot my Glock 9mm pistol(s) without much issue but, geez, he was pissy about the P-64 with sleeve AND glove! Then the disappointment.

My P-64 that kept locking the slide back and that I've been bending the inward-bent slide-stop lever outward STILL jammed the slide back. Not too bad, but ANY stickiness is unacceptable to me. I then exchanged the 18# recoil spring with a 22# one and even THAT didn't completely rectify the issue! I'm stumped. I've been gentle with my bending so as to not overly deform and/or break the 40 yr old lever. I think I'm gonna go for broke and bend that sucker pretty good as soon as I get it apart because I'm beat and can't get it apart with the 22# spring installed!!! It's tough gettin' old. Until next time......

[spareparts]

Robert, all I can say is my problem was solved via: replacing the slide stop lever, the slide stop spring, and the magazine spring(s). Your bolt face may be too far gone to catch the slide stop properly after the last round. Not sure what it's really called, but I call it the "bolt face". That lever is supposed to catch at the lower right corner of that 'face' and if it is rounded off, may not catch at all.

[robhic]

Robert, all I can say is my problem was solved via: replacing the slide stop lever, the slide stop spring, and the magazine spring(s). Your bolt face may be too far gone to catch the slide stop properly after the last round. Not sure what it's really called, but I call it the "bolt face". That lever is supposed to catch at the lower right corner of that 'face' and if it is rounded off, may not catch at all.

I may try a replacement out of one of the other pistols. The stop spring works to push the lever up all the way when activated and the magazines are OK as they operate in the other 3 guns without issue (we used 6 mags between the 3 guns). Wear on that lip/ridge/edge on the circumference of the bolt face may be the problem. When the lever hits it, it may be worn enough to let it slide off and pinch the slide with the stop-lever which jams it. It's not as bad as it was but I'm holding out for not pinching/jamming at all. I'm just not sure how to fix that. I really don't want to grind on the slide/bolt face (or even how I could do so...) so that's a problem.

[robhic]

Well, the saga continues! I put the 18# recoil spring back in the pistol that the slide sticks back on 'cause the stop-lever pinches it. Bent that lever out until I was afraid it would break then stopped. I felt good about it and went to try it. NOPE! Still pinched the bolt face ridge it's supposed to hit. AAARRRGGGHHH!!!! And the oldest vintage 1968 pistol that had light primer strikes (this was a first!) still had light strikes. I am NOT happy!

So I came home, swapped the hold-back levers between these two pistols. Now I have an untouched lever in the one that kept getting pinched. I also took a Dremel with a tapered needle-looking bit (?) in and ground the bolt face just a bit to flatten it out so the new lever will hit a flat surface. It also tapers inward just a TINY bit. I didn't do that purposely but I like that it did. This should help deflect the lever OUT instead of in and pinching the slide. Now, I really feel good about this latest "repair". But .......

I still have the light strikes in the older gun. With a 17# hammer spring (like all my P-64s) I am afraid that means my unbroken record of non-issues with the 17# springs is at an end. I guess if the extra-special cleaning and lubricating I did on the gun doesn't do the trick, I'll have to limit this one to shooting US ammo (I've been shooting all Wolf steel-case stuff so far) with - hopefully less hard primers - or put an 18# hammer spring in. But I really don't want to order just 1 hammer spring! Does anyone wanna trade an 18# hammer spring for a new 17# hammer spring (I have 2 more new ones)?

[gemini1]

Well, since you've already dremel'ed the bolt face, tapered inwards. Why not dremel the lever tapered outwards? that way when both ends meet as the empty mag pushes it up, there's more like a locking contact (for lack of better words) between the two. JMO

[robhic]

Well, since you've already dremel'ed the bolt face, tapered inwards. Why not dremel the lever tapered outwards? that way when both ends meet as the empty mag pushes it up, there's more like a locking contact (for lack of better words) between the two. JMO

I thought about that. But as I sometimes have a tendency to overdo things and screw them up ( ) at this point I want to leave the lever alone. The inward bevel is very slight and the lever is flat so it should impact flat with a tendency to drift in (I hope...). So far it is full stock from the other, original pistol. I'm hoping that will be enough to make it act correctly. And the lever I've been bending will now impact an untouched flat surface in the 1968 gun so they'll both hold back the way they're supposed to. Now I need to address the light primer strikes. And I'd worry that if not done perfectly the "locking contact" might be worse than the "pinching effect" I get now and make pulling the slide back even MORE difficult, ya think? But thanks for the thought.

[robhic]

For anyone who has slogged through this saga I believe I FINALLY got my 2 wayward pistols fixed!!!

The one with the intermittent FTfire from light primer strikes had ONLY 1 today using Wolf steel-case ammo. I'm still gonna put the 18# hammer spring in when it arrives to prevent future problems but the pistol worked fine. I also put the 20# recoil spring in to (hopefully) give a bit of a shock-absorber effect for my recoil-sensitive 13 yr old grandson whom I bought the pistol for.

The other pistol where the lock-back lever kept slipping off and pinching the slide making it hard to impossible to pull the slide back also worked flawlessly. I swapped the levers between these two pistols and Dremeled the wear spot on the bolt face that the lever was slipping off of. I made it flat and between that and a new/old lever from the other pistol it ran beautifully. I also put the 22# recoil spring in IT to try to reduce the slamming of the slide and (hopefully) keep the lever and bolt face from hitting so hard.

So it looks like it worked!!! Thank goodness because if I had kept on fooling with these pistols much longer I'm afraid I would have developed a Polish accent!