I love my P64. So much that I bought a second one for parts. My only hangup was the stiff DA trigger, which resulted in this:
The decocker is retained, merely pull the slide slightly out of battery and the hammer snaps home. When you chamber a round with the safety on, the hammer drops as it normally would. When the slide is in battery, you can cock the hammer.
Instead of carrying the gun in condition two, it can now be carried in condition one.
I find this pistol to be entirely safe to carry this way, mostly due to the design of the safety.
Agree, I sure wouldn't want a DAO P64. What did you do to allow cocking the hammer on safe? I personally wouldn't carry that way as the safety works in the wrong direction, but I'm curious.
Last edited by stover on November 19th, 2009, 4:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Some careful reshaping of the disconnecter (using the nomenclature from the parts list PDF on this website.)
The safety pushes the disconnecter down to do two things, the first stage is disconnecting the trigger bar from the SA sear, the second stage is disengaging the SA sear from the hammer which decocks the pistol.
When you rotate the safety, it uses a camming action to push the disconnecter down. If you carefully reshape the disconnecter surface that engages the safety, you can achieve a "safe" position that disconnects the trigger linkage, yet does not decock the pistol.
The easiest way to get a good grip on how everything works is to take the grip panels off the pistol and play around with it. You can see quite a bit going on by looking through the frame.
Trust me I was careful, I even bought the second one before I decided to start modding so I'd have a spare disconnecter come the inevitable "well, this has gone all wrong."
But it didn't!
There is one caveat. The slide and safety had to be relieved slightly. When I reshaped the disconnecter, it decided to hang up on the slide and safety every once in a while. This is because the disconnecter has some degree of side-to-side play, and given it's new shape it was now able to hang up on the inside edge of the grove that it rides in in the safety and the slide. The weapon would be on fire, but the trigger bar wouldn't push the disconnecter up far enough to allow itself to engage the SA sear. Very little material removed from the offending area, and that problem was solved. Might not even happen on every gun.
Also, there are two ways that I can work out how to do this. The first way is the hardest way and that's what I did - retaining the decocker while managing to allow the hammer to be cocked while in battery. This involves reshaping the disconnecter surface that engages the safety.
The other method would involve reshaping the disconnecter surface that engages the SA sear. This, however, would eliminate the decocker completely, and I think the decocker is a useful safety feature. If you chose this option, you wouldn't have to be as precise with your material removal. You also wouldn't have to worry about modifying your slide and safety.
If anyone has any concerns about safety, I can't think of why. If that hammer snapped home for whatever reason with the safety on, not only does the shape of the safety prevent the hammer from hitting the firing pin, the safety also locks the firing pin in place. When you rotate the safety from safe to fire, there's no way the safety is going to push down on the disconnecter resulting in a discharge of the weapon.
These guns come with a pretty stiff detent spring on the safety as well, so depending on your holster configuration, I don't see accidental safety disengagement as an issue.
I give you many gold stars for ingenuity and the ability to get it done, but I guess I'm too old fashioned to appreciate it. If it was meant to be carried cond. 1, it would have been designed that way. It's silly to think that the Poles didn't know that the DA pull is a bear.
I see, now. I thought that this place might be a website dedicated to P64 enthusiasts, but I guess that it's a shrine instead.
There are plenty of people here to swap springs for lighter ones, replace grips and have their guns refinished. But someone dares to change the way the gun operates, and that's going too far?
It's pretty clear to me that you guys have put this design up on a plinth. Something sacred, never to be changed. It's just a gun!
I'm sorry that I've offended your communist slave, er, Polish Army Officer idols. I won't bother you all any longer with my tales of improving a $150 surplus pistol.
http://www.usgunleather.com
