Wow, that was unadvisable, those grips are pretty flimsy and tend to crack and break easily but hey at least now you can see whats going on up in there!

So when you push the slide back your safety won't engage?

Lets try something different as I just took apart one of my 380 1915's. I was totally wrong about the breech plug. After looking at it better, there are two slots in the left hand side of the slide, the farthest one back is for the safety when the slide is forward, the second one towards the front of the slide is the slot that holds it open. This is the one it's not grabbing. When I push my slide back it engages the hold open slot at exactly 1.5", is yours getting that far back or is your spring binding, or maybe when you put it back together you didn't get the barrel back into the lug properly?