Got the slide off!
Hi everyone, sorry for the long delay getting back. I ended up getting sick and got stuck in the hospital for a day
. Luckily everything checked out ok (heart & lungs) and I'm feeling a bit better now.
Yep, it was the russian ammo that caused the problem. By the way my son describes it, he got a squib round but didn't realize it. The WWB was shooting awesome (I've heard both good and bad on it's performance in the Bersa). The Russian ammo was Kyp4 and most of the print on the box is in Russian (or something like that).
And yes, the bulge was inside the slide so that I could not pull the slide back all the way.
Thanks for the great suggestions. James K, that was a great idea. I thought of trying to do something like that but wasn't sure how to get in there. That would have worked well. Dfariswheel gave me a good idea though. I'll take pics and post what I did. Mine would only work if the bulge was slight and luckily mine was.
To get mine pushed pack I took a 6" long 5/16 bolt that was threaded the entire length, 2 washers (one thick one), 2 nuts, a 2.5" long piece of 1/2" sch40 PVC pipe, and 2 1/2" Craftsman wrenches (must be Craftsman
).
To make the press I threaded one nut all the way down on the bolt and then stacked on the 2 washers (the thick one goes on first and is to ensure the washes wouldn't distort under the stress). I slid the pvc pipe over the barrel and then inserted the bolt through the barrel. The other nut goes on the other end of the barrel but the edges on the nut looked like they might rub against the inside of the slide and hit the feed ramp so I files all of the edges off of it so it was round. Doing this it now placed all of the stress on the back side of the barrel. The rounded nut now fit perfectly in the slide and threaded onto the bolt at the base of the barrel. This one just threads on with your fingers until it goes up a few threads past the end. Then all I had to do was hold the bolt with one wrench and twist the nut down toward the barrel. Twisting the nut down pushed the barrel back over the bulge in the slide. Worked like a charm. 2 important things to remember.
1) Grease the slide well so there is little friction. I used wheel bearing grease as I figured it probably had the highest sheer/load strength.
2) Don't forget to hold the take down lever down as you press the slide back on the barrel.
Here are a couple of the pictures ...
Thanks everyone for the feedback and great suggestions!