Safety assembly "cant"

[rhayes]

Hi guys,

I've had my eye on a P64 for a while and have been reading lots of great posts on this board recently. Thanks to everyone for their contributions. A couple of days ago I had the chance to trade off a FEG P9R which I absolutely HATED for a P64 (1976) at the local Gander Mountain. I normally don't deal with them in terms of firearms, but hey.

They had two P64s on hand, one of which seemed to be in just slightly better condition than the other, and neither appeared to have any problems. After getting it home and looking at it more closely, I noticed that the safety, whether on or off, seems to slope slightly to the right when viewed from the rear:



I took the safety, detent, spring, and firing pin out to make sure there was no crud hiding and to be sure all surfaces were OK. After re-assembling the safety mechanism the 'cant' is still present. There doesn't seem to be any functional problem with the weapon and when testing with a pencil down the barrel the firing pin is making rather epic contact.

My question is, is the canted safety normal, or should I go back up and check out the other P64 and use my 30 days to trade them out?

Edit: Made the title sound less like a request for gun safety tips.

[juniustaylor]

This is kind of strange looking. You may go back to Gander Mtn and ask to look at the other one to compare them. Like you said, you have a 30 day trade-out. I'll check my slide out, but I don't recall mine having a cant. I'll let you know. Your safety was complete you said, it didn't appear to have a piece broke off on the end opposite the thumb lever like this?

[rhayes]

Thanks for the pic of the broken safety. My safety is still intact and that particular piece is not broken off. I just pulled the slide off and took a peek in it to double check. Didn't remove the safety again because my fingers aren't recovered from putting it back together last night.

I appreciate you checking out your slide for me, so thanks in advance. I may head out tomorrow and check the other one just for due diligence.

--Rick

[juniustaylor]

Mine appears to be pretty square. I wonder if your safety slot on the inside of the slide was milled out at an angle. Might have not been in the jig right or something when it was made. However, one of the other folks on here might have a different opinion.

[rhayes]

I was wondering about the milling aspect too. I don't see any appreciable wear on the safety or on the contact surfaces in the slide that would cause it to slant like that. I may take it all apart again tomorrow and stare at it for a while and see if anything jumps out. Thanks again.

--Rick

[dfunk]

Mine looks the same. After inspection, it looks as if the cutout in the rear of the slide is misaligned and may be giving it the illusion of a crooked safety. I think the safety is straight - you can see the slope going up to the top right in the cut of the slide. Junius's cutout is definitely more square than ours.

[juniustaylor]

Off topic, my rear sight is a bit to the left more than I'd like it. It affects my shots past 10 yards or so. I have tried whacking it with plastic and brass punches with no luck. Should I try heating it and then whack it, maybe using a little penetrating oil?

dfunk your cutout sure does have a slight angle.

Rick's slide seems to have a good square cutout. The angle of the slide in the picture isn't quite true, it's a bit off-centered. However, with guestimation it seems to have a good square channel.

[boomer]

Off topic, my rear sight is a bit to the left more than I'd like it. It affects my shots past 10 yards or so. I have tried whacking it with plastic and brass punches with no luck. Should I try heating it and then whack it, maybe using a little penetrating oil?

dfunk your cutout sure does have a slight angle.

Rick's slide seems to have a good square cutout. The angle of the slide in the picture isn't quite true, it's a bit off-centered. However, with guestimation it seems to have a good square channel.

JT it is time for the hot wrench indeed. Heat the slide with a torch and then give that rear sight insert a tap or too with a brass punch. Easy with the heat. Start out at 5 seconds and don't past 20. Put the heat about 1/2 inch in front of the sight on the frame. If you are too close you will only heat up and expand the sight insert as well defeating the purpose. The most critical thing is to have the frame really secure in a good vice when taping the sight. This way the impact is just not wasted on reverberation.

[boomer]

My first blush is that the safety fit is not correct in that slide and that is why it is out of proportion. Mass production and years of use are most likely the cause.

[boomer]

Thanks for the pic of the broken safety. My safety is still intact and that particular piece is not broken off. I just pulled the slide off and took a peek in it to double check. Didn't remove the safety again because my fingers aren't recovered from putting it back together last night.

I appreciate you checking out your slide for me, so thanks in advance. I may head out tomorrow and check the other one just for due diligence.

--Rick

Practice, Practice, Practice.......

[juniustaylor]

JT it is time for the hot wrench indeed. Heat the slide with a torch and then give that rear sight insert a tap or too with a brass punch. Easy with the heat. Start out at 5 seconds and don't past 20. Put the heat about 1/2 inch in front of the sight on the frame. If you are too close you will only heat up and expand the sight insert as well defeating the purpose. The most critical thing is to have the frame really secure in a good vice when taping the sight. This way the impact is just not wasted on reverberation.

Excellent advice, thanks boomer. I may give that a go today.

Junius

[dfunk]

Yeah, after lightening the OP's photo more to see if I could get a baseline of alignment, I also think it has a slight cant on it. Without a better photo, this is what I came up with

align.jpg (366.59 KiB) Viewed 11015 times

[boomer]

Great photos Dick!

I rest my case,

Boomer

[rhayes]

Thanks for all the input everyone! After taking it apart and looking at it for a while, I believe the actual cause of the apparent cant of the safety is a combination of dfunk and boomer's posts. I appears that a)the cutout in the rear of the slide is indeed misaligned, with the right side being milled slightly higher than the left and the whole cutout is slightly left of center (dfunk) and b)the mass production makes this particular pistol look slightly distorted (boomer). The flat face of the safety that is presented when the safety is off looks to be cut with a /very/ minor skew to the right which makes the apparent cant look even more pronounced. Tonight I may take a few pictures to illustrate this and post them in this thread for future reference.

I believe that I have satisfied myself that the thing is safe to shoot, so I'm going to go enjoy this beautiful spring day some more and put a few rounds down range. Thanks again and enjoy the weekend!

[juniustaylor]

Rick, glad to hear you are satisfied with it being the milling of the slide on the back. Here are a couple pictures of the inside of mine. You can compare them with yours if you want to. Of course, you'll have to remove your safety to do so.