Guns you SERIOUSLY REGRETTED taking apart!

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WVGunman

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So, my old record-holder in this regard was a Ruger Mark III. A non-intuitive design, coupled with ongodly tight tolerances, made that experience akin to doing a brake job on an 18-wheeler.

But now there is a new candidate, in the guise of a Marlin Levermatic .22. (Actually a JC Higgins model, but the same as the Marlin model 57).
The inner workings of this monstrosity are a Rube Goldbergian nightmare. Multitudes of tiny parts and tiny springs are sandwiched incongruously between two massive steel sideplates and set into a thick wooden stock. This thing weighs almost as much as my AR. The parts diagram doesn't quite do it justice:
Marlin_57_schem.jpg

Indicative of the design (non) philosophy that went into this thing is the part known as the "safety slide," or part #61. Perhaps you think a "safety" means a plastic button with a red circle at one end, with a ball detent to keep it under tension. Maybe even a sliding button of some sort. No, THAT wasn't good enough for Marlin. They produced this:
378670.jpg
Just look at that thing. (For scale, it's about 1.5 inches long and 1 inch wide.) I wonder just long it took to make each one? Where they stamped out in one piece, or did whomever the boss like least get the job each Monday to make these all week?
 
Remington Viper. Bought it off my BIL so that he could afford a paintball gun. His cleaning regimen was, wait until it didn't work, then pour a quart of motor oil down the bore. Took it home, complete disassemble, and threw it in the sink. Must have bent the sear somehow, took two days of reassembly/disassembly/rinse and repeat to get it to dry fire. Sold it as soon as I got it working.
 
In my defense, I was 19. . . when I disassembled my Marlin 60 action. E-clips and all, down to bits and springs, and this well before camera phones were a thing.

I got it back together, but it took all afternoon. That action most closely resembles a mid-80s cassette deck mechanism; maximum parts, minimum elegance.
 
Winchester model 1907. In my defense, I got the new firing pin to replace the broken one, but still haven't gotten the recoil spring compressed enough to put it together
 
Astra Model 600, long before the Internet existed. I think I had some small bit of disassembly info from Small Arms of the World by W. H. B. Smith but other than that I was on my own!
 
I have to say that anyone that has field stripped a Ruger Mk I, II, III pistol probably had a hard time reassembling. Also agree with the Marlin rimfire rifles giving people fits when it comes to having to replace the buffer or any other part in the fire control group.
 
I have to say that anyone that has field stripped a Ruger Mk I, II, III pistol probably had a hard time reassembling...

Hard agree. Pre-internet (well, the way it is now with this sort of info) we COULD NOT figured out how to get it back together. Paper bag, gunsmith. Looking sad.

Several pocket pistols with detents that fly off. I added this to the website even:
There is one good warning not included in the manuals. Use some caution when stripping these pistols. The safety lever is only prevented from over-rotating by the grip panels. If they are removed for cleaning or maintenance, the safety can be rotated too far, and the the detent plunger will fly out. This is a very, very, small part and will almost certainly become lost. The safety lever is very important to the safe operation of the gun, so use caution not to lose the detent pin. If you do loose this part, a very tiny ball bearing can replace it perfectly well, but good luck getting ahold of one.

But otherwise, always went well with thinking hard, documenting steps, etc. Even full disassembly of obscure autoloaders.

I have expressly avoided taking apart revolver lockwork, though.
 
I have not had that much trouble with revolver lock works. As long as you only work on one at a time. Don't try to ultrasonic clean two sets of bits and pieces in the same go. Learned that lesson too.:eek:
 
I have always had a habit of taking everything apart to see how it works. There have been a few firearms that baffled me for a time but the worst was a erma 22 lr pistol. looks like a small Luger P08. Friend of mine handed it to me in a bag said if I could get it back together I could have it. This was way before the internet, Talked to the only gunsmith I new he found me a manual or may have never gotten back together.
 
When I was 12 we were shooting 22-shorts with an old Stevens ...the one with the removable barrel made at the turn of the century. The manual hammer started to feel strange so I tried to get to the hammer and spring without much luck until my older brother found a big screw on the bottom of the housing outside the trigger guard. BANG! ...the hammer's coil spring went flying ...powerful spring, and far too much resistance for two kids to get back into place. And this I will never forget. The gunsmith in town (by appt only) had a replacement spring and it took him only minutes to remove and polish the hammer and install the spring, then he test fired into a bullet trap. At first we were fascinated, then my brother and I got real nervous, he took me aside and whispered "we may have to leave the gun here and work out a payment plan." This service really seemed HUGE to us. We checked, between us we had six dollars. When we asked, the old man said, "Well now, how much you got?" Much embarrassed, we showed him, and he took a five dollar bill, reached into a drawer, and gave us two dollars back.

For three bucks he saved our summer vacation and we learned an important life lesson. Plus we still have that old rifle. When he handed us back that Stevens he said: safety first boys, always remember, safety first. Then as now, that can't be repeated enough.
 
Rossi 92. It wasn't complicated to get it back together, but I need 3 or 4 hands to do it.
 
As with so many others, my Ruger .22 autopistol.

I have an above average reading comprehension and read that expletive manual *repeatedly* and still could not get the thing back together so that it would work. Finally had to take it to a buddy of mine who knew the secret and was able to get it back together for me.

And how did he learn the secret? By making the same mistake and having to take his to someone else who knew the secret who showed him!

I haven't gone to look, but there are probably no less than six videos on YouTube now detailing how to put a Ruger 22 autopistol back together now. Back in the pre-Internet days though...
 
A Savage 67e 20... my local gunsmith was very kind putting it back together from the ziplock bag of parts I handed to him sheepishly.
 
...I disassembled my Marlin 60 action...

Out of the several guns I've stripped down completely, the Glenfield (Marlin) 60 was the worst. Had to take the "cassette" apart to replace the hammer spring. It did the trick and stopped the light strikes. Somebody in the 1960's got a doctorate in reduced cost assembly through nylon and circlips.

My Dan Wesson Model 15-2 action was middling hard. The Bulgarian Makarov I'd recommend for a relaxing half hour of taking your mind off of other things.
 
I think it depends to what degree you strip a thing down.

I stripped the trigger group on a T/C R55 Benchmark down to individual components and ended up with this:

index.php


I will confess I had two distinct advantages:

1) Radiographs of the thing before I disassembled it
2) A sister rifle of the same make and model which I could refer to if things went bad

index.php
 
Odd Job has out thought you all on this. Thank you Sir for the better insight. We could all tear down something a lot farther than anyone ever intended with less than perfect results.
 
I am no gunsmith. But, I've taken my 4" SP101 apart once a year during the Winter since I've owned it's since the first time it got gummed up with corrosion and grime. I pull the trigger group out but don't break it down. This year, I was brushing it with solvent and a toothbrush, when a tiny micro spring launched. Then what I think is the transfer bar dropped off the assembly. So, I found the spring, and just put all the parts in a bag and took it to Ahlman's. I felt stupid. But a man's got to know his limitations. On the bright side, since I was taking it there already, I'm having the action slicked up and the cylinder chamfered.

I also once lost the firing pin retaining pin when I took my M-16 apart to clean out in the woods during a break in the action in Georgia. That was a long time ago. Replaced it with a snipped paper clip for a temporary fix. I am probably lucky we were only armed with blanks.
 
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