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My friend just bought a III and decided to clean it. This guy has no mechanical aptitude at all. He got it disassembled and when he put it back together, he couldn't get the pin back in. So he stuck it up in the area ahead of the hole where it is supposed to go. It would not go in by pushing it, so-----he gets hammer(he should not be allowed to have a hammer) and proceeds to hammer the pin in. He brought it to me, as I have cured alot of his errors, but I was unable to remove the pin. Took it to a gun shop and the gunsmith there was unable to remove either. So they sent it off to Ruger. It will be there 4-6 weeks. He feels terrible and I have trouble not laughing in front of him as he is a good friend. He probably has a IQ of 180 in everything else that isn't mechanical.
I just told him those Rugers are hard to take apart and put back together. He said that he watched the video and they said it was easy!

If this was the bolt stop pin on the mainspring housing, he should have inserted it downwards from the outside of the receiver first. This would have verified that the receiver and frame are aligned to take the bolt stop from the normal insertion point. Perhaps you can show him this trick when he gets his pistol back. Looks like this when performed properly:



Notice that the pin is touching the top of the receiver when everything is aligned properly. By doing this one doesn't need to force the bolt stop when inserting the mainspring housing into the frame. If the receiver isn't aligned properly one can tap it forward or back a little or twist the receiver laterally a little to align the holes until the bolt stop does fully seat on top of the receiver.

R,
Bullseye