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Peening the slide

Posted: July 29th, 2011, 3:06 pm
by sixgun
My newly acquired p-64 slide has been peened inside where the two legs touch the safety. Was that done to tighten the safety ? The pistol looks almost new, just curious...

Re: Peening the slide

Posted: July 29th, 2011, 8:14 pm
by juniustaylor
Mine looks the same. To be honest with you, I don't think it was peened for the safety. The safety has it's own real alignment system. It has a "hole" in the right side of the slide for the end to sit in, plus the hole where the lever is is going to be the appropriate diameter. Spring tension on the plunger is going to do the rest.

Whether they were peened by hand is a mystery. I feel that they could have been 1: whacked for the slide to clear the hammer a bit easier as a slope is easier that an abrupt point. If it was not done by hand, then 2: it could have been done by the hammer after a certain amount of firings.

Not an expert on it, but that seems to be my theory on the matter.

Re: Peening the slide

Posted: July 29th, 2011, 11:34 pm
by juniustaylor
Inside of my slide... Note the drag marks of the hammer on the safety itself. They line up with these "peened" marks. That's why I figure they were probably caused by the hammer just rubbing them until they became more of a slope than a wall.
Image

Re: Peening the slide

Posted: July 30th, 2011, 8:27 am
by sixgun
Yes mine looks like that. Thanks for the info. Pretty strong hammer, shoots a pencil across the room. Thanks again.

Re: Peening the slide

Posted: September 30th, 2011, 4:08 pm
by justafixer
After firing about 20 rounds the safety catch started to get hard to turn after another 20 rounds I could no longer rotate the safety catch. I went out to the shop and disassembled the gun and found the hammer slide and safety catch were damaged. The hammer slide was severally peened, as you will see in juniustaylor’s post photo. I could not remove the safety catch so using a small machinist file I filed the slide at the safety catch just enough to remove the safety catch. After the safety catch was removed I used a Dremel on the slide removing just enough material so that the safety catch would slip into place without rubbing on the slide then I squared up the edges of the slide a little. I reassembled the gun without the recoil spring, while working the action back and forth I noticed the corners on the hammer where hitting at the area I just repaired. After determining exactly where the firing pin hits and the safety catch engages the hammer I decided I could radius the corners on the hammer slightly without affecting the working of the hammer. I filed the corners on the hammer (without removing the hammer) to create a small radius leaving about 1/8 inch of a flat spot between the two corners where the slide contacts the hammer. After finishing the repair I noticed the cocking action was smoother and everything else worked normally. It’s time to go to the range and do some test firing. After 25 rounds the safety catch worked properly and rotated smoothly. Another 25 rounds and everything worked just like it should. I am NOT a gunsmith use this information at your own risk remember its better to file off less material than more “patience is a virtue” and you need a lot of it when working on GUNS!!! See the excellent manual on this website for disassemble instructions.

Re: Peening the slide

Posted: September 30th, 2011, 4:45 pm
by Byrd
Welcome Justafixer! That was a very informative & appreciated first post. I can see from the pictures in the thread where the hammer has peened/worn the area on the decocker & bottom of the slide, and I think your "fix" is a good idea. Anything you can do to smooth up the actions of these pistols will help them function better. They are very well made, but they are a military side arm, and as such can really benefit from some judicious polishing.

This winter I am going to do a detail strip of mine & polish it out to see just how much I can improve it's performance.

Re: Peening the slide

Posted: September 30th, 2011, 4:59 pm
by justafixer
Just a quick note: the photo of the hammer I submitted was AFTER I filed the radius going any further would make it round. My camera won’t take as nice of a close up photo as juniustaylor does. I also noticed the hammer shown in the disassemble manual was quite rounded compared to mine.

Re: Peening the slide

Posted: September 30th, 2011, 5:06 pm
by Byrd
Gotthcha, but just rounding the edges off like you did will not only smooth up the cocking action of the slide & hammer, but enable the slide to overcome the square hammer & force of the mainspring a bit easier. You are right when you say it doesn't take much metal removal, but just what you did will help a bunch.

Re: Peening the slide

Posted: November 14th, 2011, 3:40 pm
by whgraham
My apologies for resurrecting an old thread, but is the peening and issue? Should the peened areas be smoothed, or something else?

Re: Peening the slide

Posted: November 14th, 2011, 4:32 pm
by justafixer
The peening causes the safety catch to be hard to turn, or in my case I could no longer turn the safety catch making the safety usless. I have four P-64's they all had the same problems to varying degrees. See my post and photo it just take a little filing of the hammer to fix the problem, if your safety tuns freely you may not have to file the bottom of the slide or safety.

Re: Peening the slide

Posted: November 14th, 2011, 4:47 pm
by whgraham
Thanks. I do have a similar appearance, and safety which is difficult to move. I'm forcusing on changing the radius of the plunger, but wondered about the peening issue as well.

If filing of the peened sections was to be done, what is the proper way to do so?

Thanks.

Re: Peening the slide

Posted: November 14th, 2011, 5:16 pm
by The Only Sarge
Just take the sharp point off it.

Re: Peening the slide

Posted: November 14th, 2011, 5:51 pm
by justafixer
If the safety turns freely I wouldn't worry about filing the slide. Just file the hammer a little as it shows in the photo on my earlier post, you don't have to remove the hammer to file it.

Re: Peening the slide

Posted: January 31st, 2012, 10:12 am
by RobsTV
juniustaylor wrote:Inside of my slide... Note the drag marks of the hammer on the safety itself. They line up with these "peened" marks. That's why I figure they were probably caused by the hammer just rubbing them until they became more of a slope than a wall.
Image

Thanks for posting this.
I thought I needed a new slide, but now see this is normal.

Noticed my safety was broken in two after cleaning from first trip to the range. It was fine prior to this. After replacing safety catch, saw it was rubbing slightly the other side of this peened area. A little filing of new safety catch, and now it no longer rubs and is easier to work. I think the safety breaking had nothing to do with this, and was probably due to just a well worn P64 shooting a moderate reload. Replacement recoil and firing pin springs from Wolff ordered, just in case.

Re: Peening the slide

Posted: January 31st, 2012, 1:18 pm
by justafixer
That's a great photo, all four of my guns look about the same. Don't forget to file that hammer a little as it shows in the photo on my earlier post, you don't have to remove the hammer to file it.