Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Ballseye's Gun Shots 35 - Ortgies .32 Pistol Woes

So there I was doing a good cleaning on my Ortgies .32 Pistol tonight and when I was reassembling it I noticed a crack on one of the grips. Not a negligible crack on the main part of the grip. Of course, it was instead on the a portion of the groove edge which engages the grip latch (it forms the side of the notch into which the latch fits). In other words, if it breaks off chances are the grip will no longer be held in place. This crack runs on an angle from the edge of the wood on the outside of the groove diagonally from top toward bottom of the groove and toward the center of the grip from the rear. Now I am debating, should I lop off that piece of the edge so the crack will not go any further. Doing so would probably leave enough wood to hold the grip but that is uncertain. Not doing it may allow the crack to keep going and shear off any wood that engages the grip latch, that is also uncertain. (Nothing to drill as when you drill a hole to stop a crack in a large piece of wood; if I drilled this it would just fall off.)

Anyone know: Is there any type of glue or resin that works especially well at binding wood by actually getting into its pores and really holding it together well?

Now this is not the end of the line even if the grips fell apart. Replacements are out there. I ordered a set of new manufacture hard rubber replacement grips from Numrich Gun Parts. I figure to have them by Monday or Tuesday. I can use them when I shoot and put the other ones away.

Yet, even with replacement grips ordered, this sucks a lot! I so much liked this pistol in its all original parts condition (well except for the firing pin spring which I replaced when I got it). Did I already say this sucks - if I did not let me say it now and if I did let me say it again - this absolutely sucks. So I will be looking for a set of original grips to replace these. They sometimes come up for sale at GunBroker.com; as you would expect though there are none for sale now except for the .25 Auto size. Anyone have a set? (I do mean of these grips.)

I guess one thing came of this that is positive - an answer to something I always wondered - why the grip on one side always felt a tiny bit loose. Other than that I just about completely disassembled the pistol tonight. I took everything down except for the trigger, and only did not do that because I could not see the spring and plunger that give it tension. Not seeing it to take it apart probably means I would have difficulty seeing it it was going back together right too - so why chance it. It is a fairly simple pistol to detail strip and reassemble. No screws, only pins.

All the best,
Glenn B

2 comments:

Bee Precision said...

How did you go about disassembling your pistol? I just bought one and I want to strip and reparkerize it.

Glenn B said...

I followed the instructions at:
http://www.marstar.ca/AssemblyOrtgiesPP.htm for field stripping. Use those instructions at your own risk, they are missing a diagram. Bear in mind when the slide comes off, the firing pin spring will be loose though its guide rod should remain in the spring. The firing pin can also be removed, you have to line it up with a groove and lift it out. The recoil spring will come off with the slide too - note the recoil spring only fits one way.

This time I had a problem and accidentally knocked a spring loose behind the grip latch - so I had to take it down further to put the spring back in place. I HAD NO INSTRUCTIONS ON HOW TO DO SO AND DO NOT KNOW IF I DID IT AS THE MANUFACTURER WOULD HAVE RECOMMENDED. The following is how I did it from memory. If you try this using my directions, or if you pass on the info to anyone else, you do so at your own risk.

To disassemble further than a field stripping, I next took out the pins in the grip - the grip safety hinge pin and the magazine & grip latch pin. Taking out the first allows you to pivot the grip safety, taking out the other allows you to remove the magazine release button and then pivot the grip safety all the way out. Be careful there are at least two springs involved that now come out. One on the magazine release button, the other is the one behind the grip latch (the one I knocked loose). The grip latch, magazine catch and magazine catch spring can all now be removed from the grip portion of the frame.

I could have got the spring back in place then but decided I had gone so far why not take out the sear too and do a really good cleaning and lube. Mind you this is from memory and I think I have this right, but you may need to figure out this part yourself. As I recall it was pretty simple. To take out the sear, I think I pushed the rear of the sear (portion closer to the back of the frame) away from the side of the frame then pivoted it up a bit. It pivots on the disconnector (note this may not be the right way to do it but is how I remember doing it). Then I depressed the disconnector spring by pushing down on the ringed portion of the disconnector to remove it and the disconnector, disconnector spring, sear and sear spring all came off. You may be able to remove the disconnector first and then take off the sear, that way might be better but I am no gunsmith.

Reassembly was the real fun part. I am not sure of how I did it. I will say though that trying to hold the grip latch/grip latch spring/and magazine latch in place with the grip safety and get back into the frame while depressing the magazine button and its spring in place was a pain until I realized I had to clamp down the magazine button to do so (other wise I would have needed another hand). I am sure a gun vice would be helpful with that. The sear was pretty easy to replace - I basically did it in reverse order of how I took it off.

Make sure to follow the instructions from Marstar on how to put the firing pin and spring back into the slide before placing the slide onto the frame. Also bear in mind that at that point, the firing pin spring can get knocked loose if the slide and frame do not mesh precisely. If it does get knocked loose - it will be under pressure and came fly out of the slide with some force even for a little spring. I found mine on the other side of the room. It could quite possibly badly hurt an eye so wear eye protection and try to reassemble at this point with a backstop in case the spring does come out so it will be stopped from flying across the room and getting lost.

Remember too, at least on my Ortgies, the recoil spring fits only one way.

As I said, if you use or pass on any of these instructions you do so at your own risk.

I hope this was helpful. Hopefully a competent gunsmith would be able to give you more info than me so I recommend contacting one about this process.

All the best,
Glenn B