The Unofficial P64 Resource Forum

I tried looking this up but I ran into a friend who had the same year, 1976, p-64 as me but mine has this red strip and his doesn't. I'm sure this is something obvious but why is mine red?

Photo of my p-64 for reference. Thanks.

That is your (ejector) extractor

Good to know, but why is mine red?

It's probably just an after market replacement.

That is your extractor, not the ejector (the ejector is a notch machined into the slidestop lever (which is likely referenced by 'ejector' and not 'slidestop lever')), and it's commonly referred to as 'plum' in color. I've always heard that it's likely because the steel has a different makeup and a different kind of heat treating than the rest of the gun, which affects the bluing. I've seen plum colored safeties, slidestop levers (mine is plum/reddish), trigger bars, extractors, and a nearly full pistol in a Polish gun rag that was this color. No worries about it. In fact, if you look at the exploded views, you'll see that they indicate a difference by color in these parts, also: http://p64resource.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=3312
This is a fairly common occurrence in Euro guns and extends itself into the Makarov world, as well as many others.

I've seen some extractors that are red (plum) like that on some standard design Makarovs as well, at least 3 Bulgarians at a local gun show recently.

My Bulgarian Mak has a slight plum hue on the hammer.