Ran into my first problem with my new to me 9VE. Wanted to thoroughly clean it so I disassembled the slide. That was fairly easy; however, reassembly has turned out to be a real challenge. In my case, the extractor spring is under what seems to be an excessive amount of pressure because no matter how hard I push the spring assembly will not stay in place long enough to replace the slide cover plate. I removed every thing and double checked to make sure that the extractor and the safety plunger were clean and properly seated but after repeated tries I couldn’t hold the extractor spring in long enough to slip in the rear slide cover plate. I’ve had my Glock slide apart numerous times and have never experienced this sort of difficulty. I’m 6’0 and weigh 190 pounds so I feel that I should be strong enough to seat the spring. Something else has to be wrong.

Right now the tips of my fingers are sore and my patience is worn out so I’m going to leave it alone and give it a go in the morning. Any suggestions will be appreciated.

I guess you learned as i did, and as the manual advises, and as even Glock manuals advise, the self-lubricating sleeves and cups really require no service for long intervals and frequent disassembly is neither needed nor wanted....i had to use a flat brass punch and lean on it to compress the spring, and got a sore thumb from the much larger punch, so I KNOW your fingers must be tender....and the buffer on the end is SLIPPERY, so be careful what you use to compress it as you have a good chance of slipping under a lot of force...i'm sure there are better ideas, it's just what was sitting there for me.....Fairhope.....I'm originally from west of Tillman's Corner....long long ago in a galaxy far far away.....i live in a town of 237 nowadays, shoot in my back yard, and it reminds me of the way home formerly was....

mtngunr, thanks for the advise. So, it’s the nature of the beast, one stiff spring. Just don’t understand why it has to be so darn hard. My Glock extractor spring is a pussy cat compared to the Sigma‘s. Hmm, now I'm thinking.

Yup, I should have left well enough alone because all the slide innards were pretty clean for a used gun. That’s what I get for being a clean freak!

Nah, on a lot of guns, you pretty much SHOULD check that every couple hundred rounds to see what's going on in there, as a passageway packed with crud will sho'nuff mess with extraction.....after 400rds, i just had to look....it was a waste of time....but had cleaned several times in between first shot and checking.....go for a marathon torture test, and a lot of stuff WILL migrate into both extractor and striker passages, simply because it has not many other options...so you were right to look, no idea what you'd find....just make sure you have the sleeves and cups in order....i took mine down using a Glock armorer's manual, so i expect you are doing that....it's my first drastic plastic, so don't rate me THE word on what your problem is, for sure...

So tonight I headed back out to the work bench to tackle the sigma slide - I usually cant leave things hanging. Found an old dull pick with a wooden ball type handle, wrapped some tape around my sore thumb and finger, proceeded to push, grunt, cuss and low and behold it came together. Now I’ll know what I’m in for, If and when I do it again.

Garpo, this might be advise after the fact but I used a small hex key to hold the spring in place and put the cover back on. The hex key is short enough to hold with your left thumb while sliding the cover into place with your right hand.

Thanks Tslepebull, I'll keep that in mind the next time I decide to disassemble the slide.

Glad there wasn't anything else as a problem...the mechanism is so simple, aside from something assembled incorrectly, it was hard to imagine anything being wrong.... a displaced extractor?....somehow?....but i've been playing with guns for over 40yrs, and we all still manage to overlook the obvious sometimes....

i take mine apart ALL the time. after each shoot i strip it all the way down. i use the small flat head driver i use to open it with. you know how you have to put it under the striker and pull the sleeve back? well when im done i hold the spring down with the driver and slide the top back on with opposite hand. never a problem. its a stiff one though, make sure it dont go flying when the tool slips off, the spring on the end is tiny and like to hide when set free, dont ask me how i know.

Some folk pop out the extractor by pushing back on plunger prior to removing rear slide cover, but don't know if it is possible to reassemble that way...the interior stays so clean, it will be a while before i see if it'll work that way...

seems easier to break something that way

Just a quick note about the Sigma extractor spring and plunger assembly. Whenever I've taken off the slide insert, I do it inside a doubled up plastic grocery bag, never lost an extractor spring yet.

To reassemble, a large flat-head screwdriver with one edge covering the extractor spring plunger to push it flush with the slide works just fine for me while replacing the slide insert.