Need Pistol help...but this Board is in the Rifle Forum(!?!)

[Land_Owner]

See link above for details.  Now facing Extractor Plunger/Spring removal.  Any suggestions?

I am thinking the decocker must be removed to get the spring out to let tension off of the extractor before I can get it off again.  I am looking to my manual for a blow up diagram of the parts to see if it does come apart in the manner I am thinking.



LATE NOTE:  Got it.  Exploded parts in manual showed the way  As I thought above - take decocker out. New part is "closed" slightly more than the old one.  Tough to imagine that wear did that.  It is BY FAR too strong to have been bent.

[gunnut69]

We may be in the rifle forum but are glad to try to help. The PP's I've worked on use the same spring to power the extractor and the catch for the safety lever(decocker). This means an extra part the decocker retension pin? Most of these safeties canm be removed with a thin bladed screw driver(to compress the plunger) and a needle nose (bent) to pluck the extractor out. How did you remove the decocker? Also I'm glad to see your nknowledge of the plastic bag trick!! I us a box with 2 arm holes and a plexiglass cover for a larger work area and because I make bigger messes!!! The gentleman who sort of headed me down this trail called these 'explosive disassemblies' and it can get very bad indeed...
As to S&W service it is not as it once was. They don't stand behind older pistols as their predecessors did. Smith once had a service as good as RCBS who basically say if it diesn't and it's one of ours we'll make it work,,,free of cost.. NOT SO S&W.. They have had several problems with some of the newer autos and the local shop has sent nack a bunch. The shop is pretty unhappy. The old S&W were and are great weapons..I still use several. Good luck. Bye the way, I seriously doubt the problem with your extractor is a design issue...more likely a manufacturing tolerance problem...

[Land_Owner]

gn69...when I realized that the spring was "cut that way" and only that way (with the delivery of the 2nd spring, which was EXACTLY like the first), I tried again by loading the Safety Catch Plunger and Extractor Spring into the "tube" on the gun where they are supposed to be and just "pressed the heck out of" the Extractor Plunger into the spring using the Extractor (with a gloved hand).  The Plunger snapped into place in the end of the spring.  At the snap, I first I thought I busted something and was pleasantly surprised when the Extractor Plunger was tightly held in the spring.

When the Extractor was used to longitudinally depress the spring (hoping to hit the mark where its round "post" meets and matches the round "hole" in the frame) it bound up in a cockeyed position (maybe the Plunger was rotated?).  So I turned the slide over and held the firing pin and spring back with a pointed ice pick-like screwdriver using one hand and half-rotated the decocker (all of this inside the plastic bag) used a needle nosed pliers to ease the decocker completely out of it housing.  The Safety Catch Plunger, Extractor Spring and tightly held Extractor Plunger shot out into the bag as the decocker came out.  No parts or pieces lost.  I had to do this multiple times before I got the Extractor to seat correctly.

Once seated, everything was taken to the range and fired.  All is well that ends well.

So far, with the recall and service of both of my PPK 380's, I have found S&W warranty service, even that portion that I buggered up, to be STERLING and WITHOUT REPROACH.

I am glad that this Forum of Gunsmithing includes pistols too!  There is so much subtle interaction with these precision machined parts that to use brute force and frustration is JUST WRONG when a well worded question or two will ordinarily unwind the mystery.  It takes a few day or week sometimes, but waiting patiently means the difference between losing parts to "explosive disassembly", bent and destroyed parts, or completely ruined guns.  "Tying a barrel in knots" is sometimes the comic strip depiction of that frustration.  I should know, I have been there and tried to do that a time or two.