Ruger American slide won't go back on

So I got back from the range and was cleaning my gun. When I went to put the slide back on, it wouldn't go. Upon closer examination, I determined that the triangular tab on the takedown lever broke off. The purpose of this tab is to engage the takedown bar and therefore disengage the sear... which is the reason why you don't have to pull the trigger when field stripping the pistol. If the sear isn't disengaged, it won't drop down. In this condition, the sear contacts the rear of the slide, and it won't reassemble.

If something similar has happened to your pistol, as an FYI, it's possible to manually free up the sear by pulling the trigger and pushing forward on the left-hand metal tab (as viewed from above) all the way in the back of the frame. To know that you're dealing with the right piece, be aware that the mirror-image tab on the right-hand side moves when you pull the trigger. This would also work if your slide in on and won't come off.

No biggie... stuff happens. Here's the seriously annoying part. When I called Ruger, they flat out refuse to send me a replacement lever. They won't send it under warranty nor will they allow me to even buy one. I am REQUIRED to ship the gun to them. (The FedEx center is nearly an hour and half round trip from me.) The part would literally take longer to remove from the packaging than it would for me to install it. However, they said that it's a "newly released" gun so they want it back to investigate the failure. Yeah, that's all well and good; but I don't want to be a beta-tester... I just want to get my pistol running again.

Of course, he also told me that even if this wasn't a newly released gun, this type of part is likely considered to be something that they wouldn't just send out since it might not be consider "user serviceable". I'm a little confused about this. They have sent warranty parts to me in the past that are far less user friendly (extractors and such). I wonder what the point of this whole pistol modularity thing is with the RAP. They don't have replacement frames in different sizes like the P320 (the RAPc has a differently sized internal unit), and they clearly don't want end users to take them out... even in the case of a simple fix. I guess it's only modular for use by certified armorers or for manufacturing purposes. I feel it's like I'm shipping my sneakers back to the manufacturer because one of the laces broke, and they insist they replace it themselves.

Oh well, so it looks like I'm without my gun for 2 or 3 weeks.

This pistol may be cursed. This may be a trend with Ruger I've noticed in terms of them seeming not to want you in the gun aside from field stripping it. My Sr40c is an older one. And at the rear of the slide at the base plate there is a small hole to allow you to depress the plunger in order to slide the back plate off and remove the striker. I like this feature a lot. Every one or two thousand rounds I liked to be able to wipe the striker and channel down. Each time it was dirty enough to turn a cloth patch black so I felt like this was a good feature. Well then I noticed on all the new SR's full sized and compact the hole to depress the plunger has been deleted in the new guns. I was told this was to discourage people from removing the striker as Ruger decided they didn't want people going in there.

Now if you think about it. There's nothing any more mechanically complicated really about removing the striker in an SR than there is field stripping it. It's extremely simple.

I'm sure you could have handled replacing the lever sorry to hear about the bad luck. On the up side it probably won't be 2-3 weeks. At least going by what I read here and my own experience sending mine back it was about a week. Good luck.

On other hand if they really do get the team together to examine your pistol I guess that would delay it. But something tells me that won't happen.

Actually, I'm hoping it WILL be two or three weeks. I'm going to be visiting family for the holiday, and I won't be home to receive it.

Now that I think about it, I should probably call them; and see if I can actually schedule that it be held if it's done sooner than expected. If I'm not here to sign for it, it's going to get sent back to Ruger by UPS.

Rei40c said:

My Sr40c is an older one. And at the rear of the slide at the base plate there is a small hole to allow you to depress the plunger in order to slide the back plate off and remove the striker. I like this feature a lot. Every one or two thousand rounds I liked to be able to wipe the striker and channel down. Each time it was dirty enough to turn a cloth patch black so I felt like this was a good feature. Well then I noticed on all the new SR's full sized and compact the hole to depress the plunger has been deleted in the new guns. I was told this was to discourage people from removing the striker as Ruger decided they didn't want people going in there.

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No, the hole and plunger were deleted as being unnecessary. You can still easily remove the back plate to remove and clean the striker. With the gun unloaded, insert an empty magazine (if the mag disconnect is still in the gun) and dry fire it to drop the striker. Then use a punch to depress the tail of the striker and push down and slide off the back plate. Just like before but no need for a punch to depress the plunger.

Rei40c said:

This pistol may be cursed. This may be a trend with Ruger I've noticed in terms of them seeming not to want you in the gun aside from field stripping it. My Sr40c is an older one. And at the rear of the slide at the base plate there is a small hole to allow you to depress the plunger in order to slide the back plate off and remove the striker. I like this feature a lot. Every one or two thousand rounds I liked to be able to wipe the striker and channel down. Each time it was dirty enough to turn a cloth patch black so I felt like this was a good feature. Well then I noticed on all the new SR's full sized and compact the hole to depress the plunger has been deleted in the new guns. I was told this was to discourage people from removing the striker as Ruger decided they didn't want people going in there.

Click to expand...

Here's how you do it on newer SR's.

And, this story illustrates why I have three Glocks as my 'serious' auto pistols. Any part I want or need other than a slide or frame, OEM or aftermarket, available from thousands of retailers at very reasonable prices. I really don't mind purchasing a $5.00 part that breaks and installing it myself, I'll take that any day over shipping the gun back (even at their expense), going without it for a time, then driving 40 miles to the FedEx hub to pick it up because no one is ever at my house to sign for packages.

FergusonTO35 said:

And, this story illustrates why I have three Glocks as my 'serious' auto pistols. Any part I want or need other than a slide or frame, OEM or aftermarket, available from thousands of retailers at very reasonable prices. I really don't mind purchasing a $5.00 part that breaks and installing it myself, I'll take that any day over shipping the gun back (even at their expense), going without it for a time, then driving 40 miles to the FedEx hub to pick it up because no one is ever at my house to sign for packages.

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While I am not exactly a Glock fanboy (or hater), I can certainly appreciate that aspect of them. Of course, I think the availability of parts is likely due to sheer popularity more than because of a manufacturer's decision. This is obvious from the fact that Glock doesn't want minus connectors sold, but they are easy to acquire regardless.

I'm irritated about this issue because we aren't talking about an intricate inner part or one that requires any sort of fitting. The night sights I bought directly from Ruger required exponentially more effort (and tools and time and fitting and skill) to install than a takedown lever.

I'm not a Glock fanboy either, I just think it makes sense to focus on guns for which parts are very easy to come by. My pistols all use the connectors that came in them plus the so called "25 cent trigger job". I've tried the minus connector and found that all they do is turn the hard break at the end into mush and creep. Not sure why anybody would want a trigger pull like that!

I don't know who he got to do it but my neighbor had a G-23 someone had done a trigger job on for him. I don't know how they did it but I would never have carried it. It was fun to plink with though. I just pointed it at a water bottle & thought about pulling the trigger & watched the water bottle explode. Like I said though I would have been scared to carry it as the trigger was a little too light for my taste.

You can get a scary light pull in a Glock with different spring combinations. The danger is that you can go so light that the trigger will reset for the next shot but won't go far enough forward to reset the trigger safety. Not something I'm going to mess with!

Legal ramifications my friend. They are just covering their tail feathers from any sort of legal hassles.

FergusonTO35 said:

And, this story illustrates why I have three Glocks as my 'serious' auto pistols. Any part I want or need other than a slide or frame, OEM or aftermarket, available from thousands of retailers at very reasonable prices. I really don't mind purchasing a $5.00 part that breaks and installing it myself, I'll take that any day over shipping the gun back (even at their expense), going without it for a time, then driving 40 miles to the FedEx hub to pick it up because no one is ever at my house to sign for packages.

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+1
I'm with ya on this one Ferguson .
The last couple years I've had more than a few Ruger's go back to either Prescott or Newport. It gets real old shipping them and waiting for their return.

Update:

The pistol was returned to me today from Ruger. The packing slip said that they replaced not only the takedown lever, but also the takedown bar. That makes me wonder if they found something out of spec that maybe caused the problem. Who knows. All I know is that my pistol is back in grubby hands, and I'm happy it's home.

Quick side note... this experience taught me that two is one and one is none. I have a second RAP9 on its way to my dealer now to go with my current RAP9 and RAP9c. I suspect a RAP45 might join the stable soon as well. Yeah... I like the platform that much.

tacticalreload said:

Update:

The pistol was returned to me today from Ruger. The packing slip said that they replaced not only the takedown lever, but also the takedown bar. That makes me wonder if they found something out of spec that maybe caused the problem. Who knows. All I know is that my pistol is back in grubby hands, and I'm happy it's home.

Quick side note... this experience taught me that two is one and one is none. I have a second RAP9 on its way to my dealer now to go with my current RAP9 and RAP9c. I suspect a RAP45 might join the stable soon as well. Yeah... I like the platform that much.

Click to expand...

Glad to hear it's back home. Just glancing at it I always thought it was a platform that may be good for the .45acp. Mainly due to it's mass it's about 32 ounces unloaded and it seemed to me this is a perfect way to use the main gripe against it (it's size and weight) as an advantage. If they ever make a compact model of the American Pistol in .45 I think a lot of people will take notice of it. It seems to me because of it's weight it should be a pleasure to shoot.

In my mind my ideal American .45acp would be a compact, but retain the full length barrel of the full sized version. I think you might end up with something pleasant to shoot and also much more concealable.

Keep us updated as to how the gun holds up. Unlike the SR9 when it first came out, you don't read much of people burning up thousands of rounds in the RAP to see just how durable it is.