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Old 06-04-2020, 03:22 PM
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Echo40 Echo40 is online now
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I purchased two firearms yesterday, a Romanian Tokarev TTC and a Glock 17 FXD Gen 5.

It took me this long to post about it because I had planned on posting pics along with it, but unfortunately that had to wait because I had to clean out all the nasty cosmoline inside as well as clean a bit of rust off the magazine.
I've finally finished cleaning it, but I had so much trouble doing so that now I'm completely exhausted and in no mood to snap any pictures.

Allow me to explain, because it's actually kind of a funny story... I was having a terrible time just trying to break the thing down. It comes apart almost exactly the same way as a 1911, you push down on the guide rod, rotate the barrel bushing off, you pop out the slidestop pin, take the slide off the frame, pull the recoil spring/guiderod out of the slide, push the barrel link out of the way, then slide the barrel out of the frame. However, the Tokarev has a little clip which holds the slidestop pin in place, and while it's supposed to simply slide backwards to release the pin, said clip was actually wedged between the pin and the backside of the idiotic add-on safety lever that just had to be there because of the Gun Control Act of 1968 which imposed all manner of unnecessary restrictions on the import of firearms into the US, one of which being the requirement of a manual safety which the Tokarev lacks in its default configuration. So I basically had to force the clip backwards, which resulted in it coming off (non-destructively) the frame entirely, and leaving a lovely brass line on the frame where the tool I was using skidded against it.

So I proceeded to clean the cosmoline out of the frame, slide, and barrel, which took quite a while to do. Once I was done, I had to struggle to get the gun reassembled because unlike on a 1911, the Tokarev's barrel bushing doesn't have a handly little crescent shape cut out so that the guiderod can just click into place, thus reassembly is far more difficult, especially if you have large hands like mine. I actually ended up handing it off to my brother who has more experience with 1911s than I, who showed me how to reassemble it more easily.

However, in the process, something marvelous happened... Turns out that the slidestop pin retainer clip wasn't wedged against the add-on safety due to poor placement, but rather because it also is what retains the safety as well, ergo the clip getting pushed completely off the frame had the unintended fringe benefit of causing the add-on safety lever to fall out of the frame. Fortunately, the only downside to this is that it leaves behind a rather large hole in the frame, otherwise it's actually pretty nice because said safety is a completely superfluous trigger-block safety which does nothing to block the firing pin, ergo it really shouldn't be relied upon anyway and only serves to throw off the look of the gun. As far as the hole in the frame goes, there are actually some nice aftermarket wood grips available that cover the hole, so I'll probably just buy a pair of those and be done with it. In fact, I may just put off taking any pictures until I can get some of said grips and really dress her up nice.

Oh, I forgot to mention... After the worthless add-on safety lever fell out of the frame and I reinstalled the slidestop pin retainer clip, it now functions properly because it's no longer wedged in place.
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Last edited by Echo40; 06-15-2020 at 05:12 PM.
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