seed
08-11-2010, 11:22 AM
My first post here.
Anyway, I recently took apart the slide to solve a problem which occurred after my DE M19 came back from a shooting trip. The slide would not budge when either my brother or I tried to rack it until the third, fourth or fifth try whenever it was closed. So I decided to thoroughly clean and heavily lube the bolt and related parts. It did the trick and now the slide racks smooth as glass every time. I will explain in more detail in another post. But anyway, in order to get to these parts, I of course had to remove the firing pin stop. Unfortunately it was a California pin stop with its retarded "drop safety".
To remove it, I had to depress the additional safety plunger and then while holding it down, depress the back of the firing pin. Then I could let go of the safety plunger and turn the safety on to hold the firing pin forward as I slid the plate off. Upon doing this, a super cheap and easy to lose tiny coil spring fell out. That was the easy part. But getting that damned spring back in place was ridiculous. The design is so terrible that it can only be described as an afterthought. I wasn't even sure I got it back in right. It didn't matter. The next day I called Magnum Research and ordered the normal plate. You could tell the guy on the line felt my pain as he did not have to ask why I wanted it. He knew exactly why.
Well, long story short -- I took out the California plate and put in the correct normal plate. It worked instantly and upon close examination of the CA plate, what a relief I replaced it with the proper part as the potential for the CA plate to malfunction and prevent the firing pin from being struck when pulling the trigger seemed a very real possibility. What a horrible thing it is. If anyone's interested, I'll explain how it works...but I am off to bed right now (work nights). In the mean time, if you have a California-OK DE with the special "drop-safety" plate, do what I did and replace it immediately.
Anyway, I recently took apart the slide to solve a problem which occurred after my DE M19 came back from a shooting trip. The slide would not budge when either my brother or I tried to rack it until the third, fourth or fifth try whenever it was closed. So I decided to thoroughly clean and heavily lube the bolt and related parts. It did the trick and now the slide racks smooth as glass every time. I will explain in more detail in another post. But anyway, in order to get to these parts, I of course had to remove the firing pin stop. Unfortunately it was a California pin stop with its retarded "drop safety".
To remove it, I had to depress the additional safety plunger and then while holding it down, depress the back of the firing pin. Then I could let go of the safety plunger and turn the safety on to hold the firing pin forward as I slid the plate off. Upon doing this, a super cheap and easy to lose tiny coil spring fell out. That was the easy part. But getting that damned spring back in place was ridiculous. The design is so terrible that it can only be described as an afterthought. I wasn't even sure I got it back in right. It didn't matter. The next day I called Magnum Research and ordered the normal plate. You could tell the guy on the line felt my pain as he did not have to ask why I wanted it. He knew exactly why.
Well, long story short -- I took out the California plate and put in the correct normal plate. It worked instantly and upon close examination of the CA plate, what a relief I replaced it with the proper part as the potential for the CA plate to malfunction and prevent the firing pin from being struck when pulling the trigger seemed a very real possibility. What a horrible thing it is. If anyone's interested, I'll explain how it works...but I am off to bed right now (work nights). In the mean time, if you have a California-OK DE with the special "drop-safety" plate, do what I did and replace it immediately.