cannot select weapon slide to animate

I am following the uMotion pro tutorial making fps pistol fire...  Actually jumping back and forth (uMotion pro / community version) so as to use IK rather than FK which takes forever. I have the initial pose created, but cannot access the slide of the pistol. It does not show up in the animation properties, I can select the slide in the hierarchy and it shows in the selection window with children, but cannot select the slide and the only option is SELECT. move, rotate etc. will not enable. Not sure what I did wrong. Cannot select, move or rotate the gun itself thus cannot animate the slide moving back when fired.