Help! Ruger P-94 slide will NOT come off.

[gbundersea]

I have owned a Ruger P-94 for years, and recently received a new guide rod and recoil spring from Ruger to fix a problem I posted about on this Rugerforum thread.

I went to install the rod and spring, and the slide will not come off. I have disassembled the pistol many times, and even reviewed the steps in the manual. Slide went back, ejector was locked down and forward, index marks aligned, slide stop out FULLY until it clicked, and... nothing. The slide simply will not come off. I tried it many times, and did everything up to and including gentle but firm taps with a plastic bar, but it's on there as solidly as when the pistol is in full battery. It won't go forward at all.

Is there any small trick known to some guru that will allow me to remove the slide, or do I need to ship the pistol back to Ruger? And if it needs a trip back home, does Ruger typically spring for the return shipping? I hope it doesn't come to that, and that there is indeed something I can do here.

Thanks for your help!

(I did post this on Rugerforum too, but THR gets many more replies.)

Mods - move this thread as appropriate. I didn't see the smithing/repairs section until after posting. Sorry...

 

[Caliburn]

No worries, Gbunder, just a strange Ruger trick that's easily overlooked. Pull the slide back and hold it open. You have to reach down the throat and flick the little forward-ponting pin thing forward - it's some kind of slide palte thing mounted on the rear of the bolt face or mag well or something. It's tough to describe but it you look down the mag well with the slide back you'll see the pin thing sticking out and pointing forward.

Push that thing forward so it blocks the mag well, then the slide will come off.

Edit to add - whoops, looks like you already had that base covered. (That's the ejector? Cool) Anyway what you're describing sounds *exactly* like forgetting the ejector forward, so I'd double check that a couple times.

Does the P94 slide stop come out entirely? The P95 does but P90 doesn't. What was different about the new guide rod?

 

[tc300mag1]

Had my p-90 stick one trick i used was to just basically sling shoot the slide off...


Head to bed room ull slide all way back let it shoot off into matress make sure mrs aint in bed when ya do it think she might be mad at that ...


Other than that looks like ya hit everything i say you had pushed the ejector down and that and slide stop are jsut about only things that will hold them up

 

[gbundersea]

Caliburn,

Unfortunately, that isn't it... I've had this pistol for years, and have disassembled it many times. I was initiated into the mysterious ways of the secret Ruger "push the ejector forward" ritual long ago.
The other "gotcha" is that the slide lock doesn't get pulled all the way out until it clicks/stops. I made sure it was.

Still scratching my head on this one...

 

[Caliburn]

That's weird. Nothing else I can think of would make it do that. Give Ruger a call, they have a good guy doing service (Mike something) who might be able to help withoiut having to see the gun. Talk to him or whoever you spoke to before who sent you the new guide rod.

That's all I can think of. Good luck!

 

[Mr. B]

Make sure that the slide is not catching on the trigger bar thingly that the safety pushes down when it is engaged

 

[gbundersea]

Success!!!

I'd like to express my sincere thanks to everyone for their suggestions. I spoke to Ruger, whose customer service is indeed excellent. Colleen agreed that the spring was most likely stuck between the guide rod and the front of the slide. She suggested inserting a jeweler's screwdriver into the small gap between rod and slide, in which the end of the spring was visible, and pushing the spring back, thus releasing the slide. I tried this several times unsuccessfully.

I then thought about a post by Kat65 on Rugerforum, in which he described the same problem having been caused by damage to the end collar of the guide rod. I retracted the slide about 3/4" and held it there. Even though I was replacing the guide rod and spring, I covered the end of the rod with a small piece of plastic tubing to avoid scarring it. Then I took a pair of small channel-lock pliers and rotated the guide rod about 1/4 turn. After I did this, the slide came right off!

I think it was a combination of:

1. The spring being on backwards, and/or being malformed. (Remember, from the moment it was purchased new, this pistol chewed up the guide rod, regardless of the orientation of the spring.) This spring doesn't have a pronounced difference between each end. The new one does.

2. The collar of the guide rod is indeed somewhat worn and battered. I believe this is from the defective spring compressing around it during recoil, which both scraped the rod as well as drove it backward.

Rotating the rod must have moved the worn part enough to free up the slide. It also may have dislodged the end of the spring which was stuck.

At last I have a disassembled pistol. I can now finally install the new guide rod and spring.

Again, many thanks to everyone for all your help!

 

[Caliburn]

Bizarre

Glad you figured it out!