Took the plunge, took apart my Ruger Mk. 3, question?

[His lordship.]

I had a Mk. 2 pistol for 14 years and was afraid to take it apart, traded it off.  Bought a Mk. 3 in 2007, was curious to see if I could pull the bolt and give it a good cleaning and greasing.  As this gun is famous for being a pain in the neck to field strip I watched You tube demos, and bought and watched the DVD on Ruger Mk 1-3 pistols from AGI videos.  I also have years of gunsmithing experience on other types of guns.   

Thought everything was ready a few nights ago, pulled the gun apart at 9 PM, just fine, had to use a rubber mallet to tap out the knob on the top of the receiver that holds the bolt in during recoil, as it was tight.  Did my cleaning ok, then the trouble started.  A broken piece of metal jammed the magazine release button inside the gun when I tried to install the magazine, had to take off the grips to find the problem, where did that chunk of metal come from?  The inside of the magazine well looks like a drunk let a drill bit bounce around in there, some doofus at Ruger during assembly.  .

Was putting the gun together, everything going ok, but every time I tried to lock down the main spring housing assembly into the grip frame the knob would come back down.  I had dry fired the gun and made sure the hammer was in the right position before disassembly, saw the video again, still not working.  Read the owner's manual, they say to press the trigger again, the gun goes together great, now it is midnight!

Took the gun to the range today, 80 rounds fired, 100% reliable, just great. .

Why did the DVD video and the You tube videos not show that the trigger needs to be pressed in again to finalize the assembly of the back strap locking device into it's top knob hole location on the receiver?  Did I do something wrong?

[The Hermit]

First time I got mine back together, I still don't understand how I did it.
It's accurate and dependable, so I just shoot it and don't tear it down everytime I clean it.

  The Hermit

[His lordship.]

Saw another video of taking a Mk. 3 apart, seems you need to pull the trigger at least 2 times when putting them together again, also placing the gun in different vertical positions, barrel down, then up, etc. to allow gravity to move things inside, and the hammer positioning needs to be moved as well.

It really reminded me of a dance.  I don't plan to take my two Mk. 3's apart for several more years, hopefully I will remember the "dance" when it comes time for a cleaning.

[LHS]

The first time I took my Ruger MArk II apart, I tried a lot of times to get it back together over several weeks. Finally, it just went together and shot as it should. The next time I couldn't get it apart, I took it to the local gunsmith who showed me how to turn it upside down to reassemble it. 2 months later when I walked in carring it again, he say me from across the room and said loudly "There's the guy who can't get his Ruger back together!". We both laughed, and he spent about 30 minutes with me showing me how to disassemble/reassemble it. A big embarrassment (in fun it was though) really helps you to learn something fast!

[3030guy]

You'll get the hang of it, it's not so bad after the third or fourth takedown. I took mine apart a couple nights ago to clean and forgot about holding the trigger down when assembling the last thingamajig. 

You know what they say with handguns, "practice, practice, practice". Guess that applies to cleaning them too!

[GRIMJIM]

That definitely is right. After you do it a couple of times it isn't so bad. I mentioned the take down reputation to the salesman when I bought my ml3 and he took me over to the gunsmith and he took the time to walk me through it a couple of times.