The Unofficial P64 Resource Forum

hi, all.


new here. Bought 2 P64s from Classic a few months back. have some issues and need help.

bought some Wolff springs, both recoil and hammer.

pistol 1:
installed 18LB Wolff recoil spring (did not grind the ends)
installed 18LB hammer spring

shot some Wolf steel ammo, no issues. next tried Hornady JHP. had a few issues with slide not completely closed (by 1/8") on a chambered round. It was always first round off the magazine.

also had 1 FTF

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pistol 2:
installed 20LB Wolff recoil spring (grind off the ends or slide won't fit over)
installed 19LB hammer spring

with both Wolf steel ammmo and Hornady JHP. it drops magazine on the last round.

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weird question:

when doing function test.
dry fire, then while holding trigger. rack the slide by hand. on pistol 1, hammer will stay cocked. on pistol 2, hammer follows forward. although while shooting. both pistols goes into single action as it should.

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thanks.

Bellwilliam,
Welcome aboard. With the knowledge distributed among the members here we should be able to figure this out. 1st question. Did you fire these before swapping out the springs? If so did you have any issues at all? If not, can you put the original springs back in and try again? We need a stock baseline to work with.
Anybody else got any thoughts on this?

thanks for the reply.

no, I didn't fire it beforehand.

the double action just kills me. if the solution is going back to stock hammer spring, I probably would just sell it

I've seen a few post talking about magazine dropping at last round, but there was no mention if that's too light of a hammer spring ?

Too bad about shooting them with the stock springs. And as for the mag dropping it is known to possibly happen when changing to a lighter hammer spring because that spring is not only used for the hammer but it doubles as the magazine catch spring. I would swap the hammer springs between the 2 and see if that changes things.
Rewlly the best thing to do is put all the stock springs back in, fire them and see if they function correctly and then if they do change out one spring at a time to see what effect that one spring change has on function.
Not knowing if the guns functioned properly with stock springs is important as you don't know if the issues are actually spring related.

I was having the mag drop on the last round with the 22lb recoil spring.

Went back to the stock spring and kept the lighter hammer spring and no problems with the mag.

I am confused. Thought magazine drop on last round is due to too light of a hammer spring. Not too strong of recoil spring.

Some of us believe that the problem with the mag dropping may be because of the way the recoil impulse acts on the gun and changing the recoil spring changes that impulse. This is why I asked if the guns worked properly stock. By changing 2 springs in each you have added 2 different variables to the equation of what is causing the problems your having.

bellwilliam wrote:I am confused. Thought magazine drop on last round is due to too light of a hammer spring. Not too strong of recoil spring.

I think this is one of those "never say never" situations. The usual culprit for mag drop IS the lighter hammer spring. I had 17# springs in mine. One had consistent light strikes and a mag-drop or 2. Went to the 18# hammer spring and mag-drop AND light strikes stopped.

Also, as far as the out-of-battery problem, I took out the (new - same weight as original) 18# and went up to the 20# spring which fixed THAT problem. Maybe a little more lube and shooting will cure the problems you're having.

And I agree with you that that original hammer spring (someone said it goes 15-30# ) is a terrible thing. The Polish people either have extraordinarily strong trigger fingers or those guns didn't get a lot of DA use, IMO!

Out of battery sometimes can be caused just by not being cleaned well.