Struggling with dismantling a "No-Tool assembly" chair

[ZeldaTheSwordsman]

Last month, I bought  "no tools required" Boss Office Products chair. I'm having to return it because Amazon's dumb search engine falsely presented it as a 500lbs-capacity chair when it's actually only a 250lbs-capacity chair.

To do that, I need to take the chair back apart. Which is where the no-tool assembly thing becomes a big problem. It means there's not an obvious way to dismantle it, I had to email the manufacturer for disassembly instructions.

Which haven't helped.

I'm following these alleged disassembly instructions, which say to strike the bottom rim of the gas lift with a rubber mallet to detach the base.

No matter how many times I hit it with the mallet, the base doesn't budge.

Does anyone have any experience with taking one of these stupid things apart, have any advice? Because this is being extremely frustrating, to the point that I'm tempted to pitch the chair into the road.

[BlackCurtains]

You gotta really whack it hard. Like afraid you're going to break it hard.

I had the same problem when I needed a new seat plate and gas lift in my chair. I finally gave the base to my dad and he got it right away.

[ZeldaTheSwordsman]

I've been whacking it really hard... And trying on and off all afternoon...
I got someone else to try and they haven't had any luck getting it to budge either..

It's really frustrating because the demonstration vid the manufacturer sent shows someone hitting the gas cylinder twice with a knife, and off the base comes. No such luck with mine.

[Mewtwofan1]

Oh yeah! No tool assembly things are super combined until you have to disassemble! I had the seaquestria/canterlot castle from mlp, and it was a no tool assembly thing. I did that, then nearly broke it trying to take it apart for storage!