The Case of the Lazy Slide

Recently, I received a High Standard H-D Military .22 LR semi-auto pistol in trade, and felt like I’d made a good swap. I made the deal with one of my gunsmithing students who runs a pawn shop. He had taken in the H-D and then found that it had a weak retracting-rod spring (slide-return spring). We weren’t sure if there was anything else wrong with it, but other than the spring, it seemed to be in good mechanical condition, although the bluing was severely worn.

I was looking for a shooter and have always liked an exposed hammer, so I jumped on it. This model has around barrel that’s flattened out at the rear to meet the slab-sided receiver. The barrel is pinned, and, as mentioned, the hammer is exposed. One of the things I liked about this one was the crisp trigger, which told me that it had probably been owned by someone who cared for it.

I knew that some evening when we were without a project to work on, the class members could find the problem with the retracting-rod spring. The gun resided in the safe in the shop for well over a year before I remembered it and pulled it out for 22 Long Rifle. a second inspection. As the photos show, there was no rounding of edges or other signs of extreme wear, so it seemed unlikely that there was anything seriously wrong with the pistol.

The stop-lug fingers were like new, the retracting-rod spring was not broken and had no kinks in it, and there did not seem to be any binding. The slide was free to move rearward until about 1/2 inch before its rearward extreme, and then the return spring had good strength. It just ran out of "oomph" before the slide was

fully forward; it wouldn’t stay closed against the rear of the barrel. The little stop-lug-plunger catch button on the top of the slide was fairly tight and Answer to This Month’s Gun Clinic The previous owner probably pawned the pistol because he couldn’t get it reassembled correctly. The tip-off should have been the mention of the stop-lug-plunger catch button.

The retracting-rod spring plunger must be captured in the spring-compressed position when removing the slide, or the takedown lever’s fingers can’t get behind the retracting-rod spring to make it push the slide forward. To disassemble the slide from the receiver, the slide should be pulled rearward, the plunger-catch button depressed and held, and the slide pushed forward. Then, the takedown lever can be rotated clockwise and the slide can be pulled off toward the rear.

The catch retains the plunger and When the slide was moved forward, the takedown lever on the right spring in the cocked position so that the fingers can get behind the plunger when the slide is reinstalled. (The hammer should be cocked all the way to the rear to make reinstalling the slide easier.) When the slide is pulled rearward again, the fingers fall behind the plunger and release the catch side of the receiver wouldn’t rotate up into the horizontal position.

It would, however, when the slide was in the rearward position, which put the fingers in the upward position. When the slide was pulled rearward, there was a hard spot in the movement about an inch before its rearmost position. This could be attributed to cocking the hammer, but could it have anything to do with the slack retracting-rod spring? Can you spot the problem from the photographs, or get a hint from the description of the problem? (answer below) button.

It seems obvious that High Standard redesigned this pistol to eliminate the tricky disassembly. Civilians just aren’t trained to field strip their weapons in the dark. Now, I just need to sleeve the barrel for the .17 Aguila cartridge, but that’s another story. ■