SR9 striker cover problem

[onfinal]

I thought it was about time to clean the striker and channel on my SR9 since it has never been done, but when I got to the part where you depress the striker cover plunger and the cover slides right off, mine wouldn't no matter what I did.

I depressed the striker blocker and magazine disconnect, letting the striker come forward, just like it's supposed to. I depressed the striker cover plunger with my pin punch and it seems to go in under spring tension like it's supposed to. At the same time I try to slide the striker cover off, but it will not move. I have tried different depths with the plunger, wiggling the cover, swearing, etc. Nothing will move the striker cover.

Anybody had this problem? Any tips, tricks, hints, ideas how I can get my striker cover off without demolishing it? Thanks for any help you can give me.

 

[Conn AK]

You have the button depressed in the striker cover itself, right? The rear of the striker assembly is fully forward and you're pushing down on the striker cover itself while holding the spring-loaded button on the striker cover?

 

[clint_lnl]

heres a video that helped me.
good luck.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRFP794jGe8

 

[carbonyl]

Mine was very hard to remove especially the first time. When I tried to put it back I couldn't get it far enough into the slide to engage the plunger. I found that a piece of the cover splintered off and was still in the slide preventing he cover from fully seating in the slide. Once removed the cover went in easily, was easy to remove and the gun functioned perfectly. I did let Ruger CS know about it and they sent me a new cover. You can see the scrape mark the plunger left on the cover as it was being removed on the top picture. My new cover doesn't have this after being removed several times. Maybe some plates are just too thick?

 

[jhearne]

Hopefully, the striker cup isn't broken/separated any and isn't binding the cover plate. Otherwise, as long as the striker's tip is through the breechface, it should be free enough to move. One way to check is to look at the bottom of the slide. There should be a few thousandths of clearance between the striker cup and the cover plate. You can shine a light from the cover plate (through the indicator's hole in the back end) to check the clearance. I had a picture showing this, but I can't find it atm.

If there's clearance, it could be that the plate itself is just too tight and needs to be forcibly removed. Hopefully this doesn't mean destroying it in the process, but means maybe ordering a new one or having Ruger replace that part. Hopefully something that you can do yourself, once you/Ruger determine the cause of the trouble.

Josh

 

[Clovishound]

Just a thought, the pin punch you are using is a nice loose fit in the hole? If it is a tight fit, then you will not be able to move the cover unless the pin is at exactly the right depth. With a smaller pin, you will be able to slide the cover slightly, and it will capture the spring loaded pin. You can then remove the pin punch and slide the cover the rest of the way off. At least that is how I do it.

 

[onfinal]

Thanks to all for your suggestions and ideas. Unfortunately nothing worked and the cover will not come off no matter what I do. Since the gun operates/fires perfectly otherwise, I suspect the problem is somewhere in the striker cover plunger pin, as in not going in far enough to clear the cover and let it move.

I called Ruger with my story and they said send it in, so that's my next step. Hopefully Ill be able to report a happy ending.

 

[bakerotfd]

This may have been said already but I found the same problem with mine yesterday. I had to manually move my striker forward after depressing both buttons on the slide. It only moved a bit but it was just enough. My cover then slid right off. Good luck man

 

[Conn AK]

You should see the striker/firing pin poked out if it is fully moved forward. It's a good idea to clean the striker and striker channel. Mine was greasy from the factory. Glad I cleaned it first off-though I'm sure it would have worked fine anyway. I can't think of any possible reason the striker cover won't come off if the striker is all the way forward and the release button on the cover itself is depressed. It went on, it has to come off.

 

[Conn AK]

Also, check the SR9 stickies on this forum. That's how I learned to take out the striker assembly.

 

[onfinal]

The striker goes all the way forward when the striker blocker and magazine disconnect are depressed. It can't be manually moved any farther forward, and the firing pin does indeed poke out noticeably. It has to be something wrong with the plunger/pin or its spring that's not letting it clear the cover so it can slide. The gun operates flawlessly, shoots well with no failure-to-anythings, so the striker itself is working as it should with no hangups.

It will be on its way to Ruger tomorrow. I'll let you know what they say.

 

[Conn AK]

Yeah, never know. It could be deformed above the release button which allowed putting it in, but bumps up against a plastic burr coming out. That is one part that should have been made of metal on the SR series. That part has been replaced free of charge on my SR9 when I stepped on the original on a concrete floor by accident while cleaning the gun. Still fit, but it was a Rosie O'Donnell putting it back in. Ruger sent me a replacement in about 2 days.

 

[Colonialgirl]

I just ran into this problem with my SR9;
When firing, it would occasionally have a round hang up half inserted into the chamber, at home, when I got the problem duplicated an inspection revealed that the base of the round was hung up UNDER the firing pin indicating that the firing pin was NOT fully retracted. Disassembled the pistol and decided to remove the Striker Assembly and clean out the channel as I have found brass filings trapped in it in the past.
I couldn't get the Striker Cover to slide off, even with the striker as far forward as possible and the cover pin plunger fully depressed with ANY size tool pushing it in. A closer examination of the slide under a strong light found that the Striker Pin Cup was broken and a piece had broken off; even after removing the broken piece, still had a struggle to remove the striker cover.
After FINALLY getting the cover off, I found it had separated into THREE pieces; the larger thicker back section of plastic, A thin steel plate, and then a thinner plastic section which broke into pieces as it was being removed.

As if now, the Striker Cover is totally useless and I will NOT use it; The Striker Spring Cup is broken and unusable AND to top it all off, I am more than a little PO'd and getting a hard time from my partner about not having spent a fortune for a big clunky 1911 clone.
I will be contacting Ruger Customer Service in Arizona Monday (May 14th, ) about this problem and to see what they will do about it.

Note 1: I DID find quite a large amount of brass filings in the Striker channel, particularly up in the enclosed area near the face of the slide. I tried a cotton swab, but fund a better and faster method was with WD-40 Spray to flush it out.

NOTE 2:
Why does Ruger make the Striker Cover out of plastic and why not use a better plastic for the Striker Spring Cup such as Teflon or Nylon?

Pamela

 

[Colonialgirl]

Called Ruger in Prescott AZ Monday; They are sending a NEW Striker cover and striker spring cup free of charge.
Great service; STILL wonder why they don't make the striker cover out of stainless and the spring cup out of teflon or nylon.

Pamela

 

[Conn AK]

Called Ruger in Prescott AZ Monday; They are sending a NEW Striker cover and striker spring cup free of charge.
Great service; STILL wonder why they don't make the striker cover out of stainless and the spring cup out of teflon or nylon.

Pamela

Having always been a fan of the S&W 39 family of steel handguns, it has taken me some time to be comfortable with plastic era of striker pistols. The plastic striker cover is slightly less unsettling than the plastic trigger. Seems to work overall though.

 

[Clovishound]

Not sure if the goal is to reduce weight, or to reduce cost. Probably a little of both.

 

[JohnKSa]

I recently had a similar problem (stuck slide cover on an SR9c). The plate would not come off even with the plunger depressed. Furthermore, although the plunger depressed somewhat, it didn't feel like I was getting full travel.

I finally managed to remove the cover although it took considerable force and found that the overmolding had broken off in the process of removing the cover. It looked very much like the damage in the picture in carbonyl's post.

However, the broken piece was actually stuck in place and there was damage to the overmolding that had obviously happened during installation. Basically the plunger had plowed a channel through the overmolding during installation and that's what held the overmolding in place during removal and weakened it so it broke.

Clearly it couldn't have happened during removal because the piece with the damage didn't come out past the plunger during removal.

I managed to remove the piece of overmolding and then tried to reinstall the cover plate. There was NO way to do it. The plunger couldn't be compressed nearly enough to allow it back in place. That's why it damaged the overmolding during installation and what made removal so difficult.

I pulled the plunger and spring out of the recess to see if I could figure out why the plunger wouldn't depress. I got a significant amount of what appeared to be bead-blasting media out of the hole. After removing the material, the plunger and spring went back in place and the slide cover could be EASILY installed and removed.

I think what happened was that after the hole was drilled, but before the assembly process the bead-blasting media lodged in the hole and wasn't removed during the finishing process.

Either the assembler is tremendously strong and totally unaware, or the plates are pressed into place by some sort of a machine. At any rate, the plate was forced into place, damaging the overmolding in the process.

Ruger sent a new slide cover plate and I sent them the foreign material (at least about half of it--some of it was lost as I removed it from the hole) for their examination. No word back from them.