Thanks for all the reply's. I messed with it several different times today (patients is golden right ? ) and nothings worked so far .This rod is wedged in tight, when i got good contact with a good steel rod on the end of the stuck rod and tapped on it all it did was move the retaining nut toward the muzzle end,not good. I did use a T 99 rod for comparison and I'm 99% sure it's a T 99 rod in there. When I compared the shape/cutouts on the T99 rod to whats in the T38 It seems the large part of the rod is jammed into the retaining nut on the T38 release . I do agree I need another set of hands with this . Tuesday I'm going out of town for work and stop by a good fiends shop who I spoke with earlier about this. Maybe the 2 of us can figure this out . Thanks again for the good ideas.