I had looked at some of the maintenance links before, but not having done it yet, their significance hadn't struck me. I think there might be a little UNDERstatement in the manual when it states "8 To re-assemble the gun just reverse the process.". Yeah - Right!
What they fail to tell you is that in order for the hole to line-up to reinsert the pin, the barrel needs to be forward a little and the recoil spring compressed "just the right amount" (my words, not theirs).
I had previously looked at the thread for RJ Hedley's tool, I wasn't able to see exactly what it was supposed to do, yet without viewing that, I might still be trying to put the gun back together. No wonder they say "It's to be shot a little, but carried a lot." If you shoot it a lot, that means you need to take it apart and put it back together a lot. Not something I find very appealing at the moment. I have gone an ordered one of David S's devices, hopefully it won't be so painful in the future.
Why don't they just spell it out in the manual? Here's what I discovered. In order to re-assemble the pistol, the barrel must be moved forward enough, protruding from the slide, so that the holes in the frame and barrel line up. This can't happen as long as there is pressure from the recoil spring assembly pressing against the barrel. So pressure must be relieved, somehow, on the recoil spring assembly so that the barrel can be moved forward, such that the barrel pin can be inserted. Seems fairly straightforward once you realize what needs to happen, my problem is I only come with 2 hands. From watching his video, it looks as if David's device makes up for one of my missing hands and gravity makes up for another missing hand (I'm up to four hands, did I miss any?)
I know pictures are worth a thousand words, but is there any written instruction (insert tab "A" into slot "B") type stuff anywhere?
And in case anyone is curious, I did have some metal filings on the frame along the slide rails. I also noted the outer recoil spring is slightly shorter than the replacement which came with the new pistol. I wasn't aware of the spring change need until after I began firing it, so I haven't keep an accurate count, but if I had to guess, I'd say at this point I've put in the vicinity of 7 mags worth of rounds through it ( 7 x 6 = 42 ). I had been cautioned not to get excited when I see that the spring has lost a coil or two of its original length in a short period of time. I'm wondering now, how short will it get? Could overall spring length be a better gauge as to when to change the spring vs. round count? I know, for me anyway, unless I keep a log, indicating the number of rounds fired, in a short period of time, my memory will stop cooperating with me and my best answer to how many rounds will be "I duno".
