Any funny stories about having to improvise gun solutions?

Unless you're shooting them over a chronograph, you won't notice much, if any difference.

Caplock said:

I've got 50 rounds of 9mm loaded up with magnum primers. Can't find any standard small pistol primers. Not a max powder load by any means. Wish me luck.

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I have a hunch you won’t be able to tell the difference. Eager to hear your range report.

Courage!!

Primer cup used to take the da trigger from 8.5 to 9.25# on a S&W K frame - no more light primer strikes.
(Range gun , not S.D.)

A year or two ago I was up at my cabin on the last day of pheasant season. I was out exploring walking around more than hunting. I had my Stoeger SxS just in case a pheasant presented itself into my wandering's. I was walking on ice along the edge of a frozen pond and, yup! slipped and fell on my butt. Shot gun flew through the air and came down barrel first into a three foot snow bank. I gathered myself up and my pride and walked to the snow bank to gather my SxS, broke the action to find a foot of snow packed into the first foot of both barrels. I was about a mile and half from the cabin so did not want to trek back for just this. I was right next too a bunch of cattails so picked one that looked about 12Ga size and cleared the barrels. I worked and it worked rather well. I did a thourgh cleaning after getting back to the cabin but probably did not need to. Apparently cattails make really good bore snakes.

Count me in with the replacement spring gang. Years ago, I bought a "fiendishly complex" Ithaca 49 single-shot from a guy selling things from his pickup along side the road. I found it wouldn't eject properly so a used a spring from a Paper-Mate came to my rescue. Still works good.

Walkingfunk said:

... wanted something different. So I bought one of those mosin bent bolts for sniper conversions, cut off the bent bit, and notched it out for the bolt handle to get a good weld.

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Wow! That's a lot of handle reciprocating. Don't go lefty or you'll shoot your eye (and teeth) out, kid.

I have heard that a broken "W" spring in a rifles magazine can be replaced by a piece of foam rubber, which will work in an emergency . I tried it on my type 99 Arisaka. It worked, as long as you only loaded two rounds in the mag.

MacAR said:

A few years ago, my BRNO side by side broke a firing pin the night before a quail hunt. Now this firing pin isn't complicated, but does require a lathe to make. Guess what I don't own? Yep. So, I did the only thing I could think of: I used a broken screwdriver shank as my stock and chucked it in my drill press. I used a flat file to turn down the shoulder and shape the ends; then fitted it to the gun and used it for at least a half-dozen hunts afterwards. However, I did have my gunsmith make me a replacement, and a set of spares, not long afterwards when I took the gun in for other work.

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It might surprise you how many times I have heard gunsmiths call a lathe their "horizontal drill press."

Used a hairpin to replace the hand spring in an Italian Colt copy. Still working.

First time disassembling aM1917 Eddystone, I broke the leeetle tiny arm-like ejector spring that pushed the ejector out and away from the receiver after bolt cleared. After wasting no little amount of time looking online for a replacement ejector that still had a spring, I cut around 3-4 coils off of a ball point pen spring and installed that between the ejector and the receiver.
That was, oh, around 1000 rounds ago, and it still does the job.
OS

Old Sandman 71 said:

First time disassembling aM1917 Eddystone, I broke the leeetle tiny arm-like ejector spring that pushed the ejector out and away from the receiver after bolt cleared. After wasting no little amount of time looking online for a replacement ejector that still had a spring, I cut around 3-4 coils off of a ball point pen spring and installed that between the ejector and the receiver.
That was, oh, around 1000 rounds ago, and it still does the job.
OS

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I did the exact same thing years ago.

We shouldn't spread the pen spring story around, the Feds will start listing pens as items subject to the Arms Export Control Act or ITAR.

I will throw one in a friend of mine did. He had a old Grendel p12 .380 pistol. If you know anything about those guns, you know that the hammer spring is a flawed design and they are no longer available. It is a flat ‘clockwork’ spring. So he goes to a local place that repairs old clocks. They are able to make him a new spring for $15. It has lasted for several years now.

years ago i switched from carrying a glock to a 1911. I never carried spare mags with the glock. but with the 1911 I felt i really wanted at least 1 spare mag with me. I tried a few ways to carry the spare but it was always uncomfortble or in the way and found myself not carrying it. finally i settled on a mag holster from remora and would carry the mag in my right rear pocket (im left handed) and this worked for me. in practice i could draw it quicker then i was expecting and was happy with the location considering it was the only one that had me walking out of the house with it daily.

the problem? for some reason it would pinch rounds out of the mag and at night i would fine 1 or two rounds was no longer in the magazine, 2 rounds is quite a lot when you only had 7 to start. so i took a pringles can with the metal base and cut it to make a little metal lining for the holster and it worked perfectly. rounds stayed in the mag. and it never interfered with drawing the mag. i felt a bit podunk at first, picturing those silly meme's of people using a flip flop to carry a gun and other silly things. but it worked and practiced drawing enough times to feel safe it was 100% reliable. so for a few years i had the bottom of a pringles can helping to hold my spare mag.

When I 922r'd my Saiga into AK format and was tapping the trunion to install the bullet guide (to accept AK magazines) the tap broke off inside the trunion. I superglued it into place and put about 300 rounds through it with no problem before I found a gunsmith who finished the job. I'll never know how many more rounds it would have taken before falling out.

Lost the rear sight off My 788 rem in the brush years ago deer hunting finished the hunt with a improvised ghost ring AKA one scope ring ! And I got one !
....

Another spring.
Dry fired my Taurus M85 testing it after cutting the hammer spur off, using the 'pencil bouncing' method of testing.
Firing pin spring ended up squished and binding.
It's had the spring from a random business handout pen in it since, which hasn't given me any trouble.

aarondhgraham said:

I watched my Pop make a firing pin for an old .22 single-shot,,,
Out of a ten-penny nail.

Does that count?

Aarond

.

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Hey! That's my dad! I want him back! And the Stevens comes with him.