Guns you SERIOUSLY REGRETTED taking apart!

Nylon 66 took many hours to get back together when I was about 22. That was in 1974 and it still works fine.

Miroku made " Browning" 1895. There are three different tensioned screws and pins that require the use of slave pins to get it back together and one of them was impossible. I had to fashion a finely made slave pin with no tolerance to get the damn thing back together. Nightmare.

The High Standard 10-B shotgun. One really cool design, but servicing is best left to masochists. It was a police trade-in, and filthy inside.

After removing the plastic housing, cleaning, came reassembly of the workings.

Two tapered (sharp) coaxial rings, preloaded with a coaxial recoil spring. It can (and did) nip bits of flesh off my left palm when it got away and closed on me.

Conelrad

Ruger MKII is the only firearm I have EVER had to take to a smith to get it back together. This was of course in the days before the internet.

12Bravo20 said:

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.

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I just for the first time in my life was handed a Ruger Standard that spent a long time stored with 3in1 oil, it was locked up solid.
Flip down the lever in the back of the grip, pull out the bolt retainer assembly, separate the grip frame from the barrel assembly, pull the bolt out, remove the recoil spring assembly, push out the pin and remove the firing pin and return spring & guide.
I heard all along about how bad these are to take apart but the only trick was making sure the hammer was aligned right when I put the retainer back in.

EAA Windicator. The front action pin was severely hard to punch. The action, when you slide it out, is full of little pins and springs. Just like the old RG40 almost.

However, the Uberti Scout/Silverboy is right up there too. Had to replace a broken lever on a Silverboy..ugh.. Once I figured out the trick it went ok but whomever designed that was a sonufagun.

Honorable mention to the thumb latch on Charter Arms revolvers. Without the special tool it's a frustrating experience.

Speedo66 said:

The funny thing I found about reassembling my Rossi 92 after replacing the ejector spring was, I watched a video, saw how it should be done, did the same thing several times and it didn't work. Doing it again, like magic, it worked. No idea why it didn't work the previous times.

I guess sometimes the planets just align and that's that, don't ask why.

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Pre-internet, my friend bought an old Winchester lever, I guess it was an 1892, in .30 something, I think it was, and he wanted to clean and lube it up. I stupidly didn't think it would be all that difficult to take apart for a really good cleanup, but that ejector spring had us beyond frustrated. After endless tries, we took it about a half hour way to a gun store and the ancient gunsmith, who was probably alive when it was made, took the rifle into the back room, and about 5 min later, came out with it working fine. He didn't charge my friend anything, but said, "Just buy something instead!", and we each bought some patches, a box of .357 ammo, and a bottle of Break Free. Sadly, that friend died about a month later of a heart attack at 38. I wanted that gun, but his wife sold all his gun stuff to a neighbor.

A Colt Woodsman a friend inherited from her Dad. We had taken it out to teach her how to safely shoot handguns, and I offered to clean it. So I stripped it down and cleaned it. And took 3 days to get it back together. Ruger 22lr pistols are easy by comparison. As a theme in this thread, no manual and pre Internet.

Ruger 22 pistol. Once I got it back together I swore I would never take it apart again.

I used to take guns apart regularly. I found a Winchester 92 to be rather challenging, but the prize winner has to be (I hope!) the Springfield M6 combination gun. I took it apart to work on the abysmal trigger pull. The receiver is made from two stamped halves riveted together. I figure they must assemble all the lockwork in one half, then rivet them together, because the thing is darn near impossible to reassemble. It required making custom slave pins and a reassembly sequence of Byzantine complexity. Put this part back in, but only half way, then put that part in just a little bit, move the first part farther in, then.grab the third part......I finally got it back together, but it was a real struggle.

Never take one apart. You have been warned.

evan price said:

I just for the first time in my life was handed a Ruger Standard that spent a long time stored with 3in1 oil, it was locked up solid.
Flip down the lever in the back of the grip, pull out the bolt retainer assembly, separate the grip frame from the barrel assembly, pull the bolt out, remove the recoil spring assembly, push out the pin and remove the firing pin and return spring & guide.
I heard all along about how bad these are to take apart but the only trick was making sure the hammer was aligned right when I put the retainer back in.

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Like it has been said, for us that bought used pistols back before the internet days (no manual), it was tricky to first time or two to reassemble the Mk I/II pistols. It must have been a big enough complaint that Ruger changed how the Mk IV is field stripped and reassembled. Yes once you do it a few times , it's not bad.

I believe I have only taken apart 2 firearms completely. One of which was an AMT Backup in 380. That was the firearm that makes me appreciate tool less field stripping. Needed a punch, a dime, and a wooden spoon to take apart that enough to clean. I broke it down further as it needed a detailed cleaning. Being an older and obscure firearm, videos and whatnot didn't really help putting it back together again. I am surprised it still fired after that.

I picked up a plain brown Nylon 66 from my LGS after they had removed the extractor to repair one of the fancier models.
I picked up an entire bolt on EBay for less than a new extractor and proceeded too disassemble, clean and reassemble the little gun.
I didn't know it was supposed to be a problem.
It wasn't.
The only problem gun that I have right now is an old Stevens pump gun that has a stock bolt that's too long and I haven't been able to pull that bolt because I didn't have a long enough screwdriver - until now.

I own a series 80 Colt Gold cup, and I am not planning to fully disassemble it anytime soon. There are a bunch of differences between a Gold Cup and a standard 1911, and one of the differences is a tiny part called the "sear depressor," and an even smaller "sear depressor spring." The sear depressor spring is possibly the smallest spring I have seen in a gun, and it is very difficult to install the sear and disconnector without launching the sear depressor spring. Last I knew, no one had made these springs in a decade or so, and they were very hard to come by.

I do feel funny saying that I own a 1911, and I am hesitant to fully strip it, but an original Gold Cup is really not a standard 1911, and caution is justified.

My Ruger Mk lll gave me the most trouble. It still does.

Colt 1903 semi-auto to fit a new safety. The safety was oversized to the firearm which had not been fired in over 40-50 years.

Oh, and my gunsmith refused to take a Winchester 190 .22 apart to improve the trigger, said doing so would take more labor costs than the gun was worth. Still has a lousy trigger and indifferent accuracy.

I guess that one of these days, I'll have to have someone that says they are difficult, show me how the Rugers are so difficult.
I must be doing something wrong because I have always found them to be very easy to deal with.

I have been one of the guys who had to put things back into place when they came into the shop in a bag. Some where indeed challenging. Now I am getting old and my hands are full of arthritis. I can still do a lot but find some of the things that take some dexterity are near impossible for me. I retired years ago. So here is my story of a more recent nature. I decided to do a smooth up action job on my Taurus Model 94 . For those unfamiliar that is their small frame model in a 9 shot .22 LR . The issue is they mounted the safety bar to the under side of the trigger assembly . Now this is a real problem since you have to have it in place before you install the trigger and hand. You have to mate the little 1/2 stud to a hole in the trigger and do it blindly. So if anyone here has a installation trick on this please let me know. I will get this done, but there has to be a trick someone has figured out to make this a lot easier for someone who can't make a fist an who's hand joints lock up.

Oh man.
My Remington Nylon 66.
I was going to do a detail strip and clean every nook and cranny on that rifle.
I figured out how to get this thing apart into almost every single piece BUT putting it back together was an absolute nightmare and initially, I failed miserably.

It was weeks before I figured it out but eventually did it.
I hid it in pieces under my bed. I was about 12 or 13.

My dad would have kicked my ass so I was never going to tell him if I didn't have to.

That would have been 57 or 58 years ago.
It still shoots like a champ.

boom boom said:

Oh, and my gunsmith refused to take a Winchester 190 .22 apart to improve the trigger, said doing so would take more labor costs than the gun was worth. Still has a lousy trigger and indifferent accuracy.

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Looks like the sear stud on the Win 190 is staked. I can understand why he didn't want to touch it unless he was replacing the whole trigger.

Everything goes fine until that one lil' usually hidden spring goes ''sproinggg''.

NeverNeverLand is not some far off magical area, it's to the left of the bench BTW...

Roger Mark 2 my dad inherited from his cousin wss the worst we tried to reassemble in recent memory. Thankfully we had youtube for assistance as there was no manual to be found. The next worst one was a POS ring of fire pistol a friend bought for $25 (impulse buy at a garage sale). I took it apart and soaked it in a form of Ed's Red overnight to break up the gunk and cleaned it with a toothbrush, scraper, and lots of q-tips. Getting things back together was a challenge as the tolerances were sloppy at best. We put about 5-600 rounds through that thing before the timing wss so far out it wasn't safe to shoot anymore.
I have since made friends with a couple of gunsmiths who work cheap (one guy is cash only, the other is a 12 pack of Barqs rootbeer in glass bottles and a pack of cigarettes for payment). They do the grunt work of detail stripping when required.

My Buckmark - springs spring away. Never again.

The ruger MKIII made me swear a little the one time I did one, but I think after doing it a time or two it would be pretty easy. Same for my buckmark camper, takes a minute to figure out to rotate some of the internal pieces to get them to even come out of the frame or go back in, but not terrible if you are patient.
The one gun I worked on that seriously got me worried was a WWII german luger that I took the mainspring out of to remove some rust. I don't know if I'd have gotten it back together if not for youtube. There is a very clever trick to "screw" it back together and I don't think I'd have thought of it myself, especially not as frustrated as I was at that point.

Took apart an SW revolver. Put it back together. Oh, what's this little shiny steel short rod? I dunno. Where's the exploded diagram? There it goes.