Shipwreck, the instructions are a big pile of crap. I bent the guide rod trying to get that stupid firing pin assembly out. I finally figured out that a little bit of the assembly shows from the bottom of the slide assembly (I just pull the whole tinkg off the pistol first) and that if you push from the bottom, and then pull on the guide rod a bit, then push from the bottom again, you can kind of wiggle it out. I'm hoping that it will get easier now that I've had it out once. This pistol sure doesn't win any marks for ease of takedown, that's for sure!