So...taking apart my P232 this morning and the classic "sproong" moment occurs.

Fiddly fingers cause not-so-fiddly problems.

I noticed that the slide catch lever had a lot of play, so naturally I poked at it. Most apparently I poked a bit too much or too forcefully, as the lever became unattached from the frame and something went-a-flying, bouncing off my chest and down into the netherlands below. After 35 minutes of searching, I came up with this:



I confirmed that it's a SIG P232 part from a similar shaped image on Numrich's website, and that it's a spring for the slide catch. So now I'm feeling pretty good about myself. I actually found a miniscule part off my garage floor. Shocking. But then reality hits and I realize that I don't have a clue as to how this spring goes back on the gun.

So I visit YouTube, and here's where the confusion starts.

After watching two near useless P232 vids in my native tongue of 'Merican, I open up a Spanish (Mexican) vid of a fellow detail stripping his P232. Don't understand much of the language, but I'm following the images. But when I get to the part where he's taking down the slide catch, I notice that his gun is different than mine.

He don't got no spring like I got (screen capture below):



My gun has a void where that ovoid-shaped bit is on the video. I'm pretty certain that my pistol didn't have the part at all (well at least I didn't hear anything go 'plink' or 'tink' against the concrete floor when the spring decided to take a flying leap. I heard the spring, but nothing else.



The video clearly shows this as a separate metal plate-like part, which the fellow uses a pair of pliers to remove from his gun. The gun in the video is one with the vertical slide serrations; my gun I believe is an earlier P232 with the blocky serrations similarly angled to the serrations on the P230.

So the confusion begins. Is there supposed to be this difference? Early P232 vs later P232? Or some other reason? If all my gun is supposed to have is the lone spring, how does it go back on the gun? Is there another part missing?

I don't have a P232, and I didn't sleep in a Holiday Inn Express last night, however from the diagram I don't see another part in that area

The top hook on the short leg of the spring hooks into the detent on the frame, then you compress the spring (14) into the machined opening, and the longer leg connects into the v opening on the slide catch lever(15)..

Link

You can see the spring installed here...

Starts at 9.22 in this video. Still Spanish but you can see what he's doing with the spring.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Cubs2fBU0Q

Scroll down in this article and it shows the positioning of the spring. It happens to everybody...

http://www.gunvaluesboard.com/...ght-sidearm-892.html

That's all there is:

Thank you gentlemen for clarifying what my eyes failed to see in that video, and then what my imagination decided to make up.

Yep.....in fairness, that little bugger is prone to flight. It wants to launch into LEO anytime I take a slide off.