Any funny stories about having to improvise gun solutions?

redneck2 said:

Basically same thing I did.

Grandpa had a rusted up 16 gauge single shot that he had under the seat of his pickup for years. Actually he had totally forgotten about it. He quit using it because the firing pin was broken off.

I used motor oil and fine sandpaper to take off most of the rust. Soaked it with penetrating oil so I could open and close the action. Used a fine punch to drive out the old firing pin and ground a spike nail to make the new one.

Only used trap loads because the action was so wobbly I didn’t trust field loads. Killed a LOT of rabbits. No front bead, just point and shoot

You couldn’t pay me $10,000 to shoot that gun once today.

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I'll do it for 10 grand...

I suppose gun tools fits the topic, and apologies to those who've already seen this in another thread, but improvised tools I've made for one-off uses:



for: Enfield firing pin, two-pinhole screw, and Garand gas cover.

I guess there really isn't any funny story about the tools, just the story about the goof who'd make them.

@lightman's story reminded me of a similar incident. My shotgun got plugged when I tripped over snow-covered log. I didn't have the right tools to really clean it out. When I got home, I put the kit below together. It's a three-foot length of weed-whacker line, sharpened on one end, the other end melted into a ball, along with a half dozen cleaning patches and a foam ear plug. Together they make an expedient bore snake. I run the line through the ear plug when I have to clean a larger bore. I haven't had to use it often, but it's great to have when I need it.

With the KelTec PF-9 I had to use a broken-off Q-tip to hold parts in place during re-assembly. Otherwise, the slide would lock up and required vigorous shaking in all three dimenstions to get it unstuck so you could re-assemble it correctly

Terry, 230RN

Had to use a 16 gauge shotgun, Winchester model 12, last minute one year for deer hunting. Had a total of 3 slugs for it (3 different makers, 3 different colored hulls). Fired one for practice, and missed the potato chip box at 30 yds. Hunted with it, luckly didnt have a shot at a deer that year for good reason. That model was designed when shells were paper, so the elongated crimped plastic hull empties are notorious Stove-pipers in that gun too. The empties are longer than the ejection port.

Palladan44 said:

Had to use a 16 gauge shotgun, Winchester model 12, last minute one year for deer hunting. Had a total of 3 slugs for it (3 different makers, 3 different colored hulls). Fired one for practice, and missed the potato chip box at 30 yds. Hunted with it, luckly didnt have a shot at a deer that year for good reason. That model was designed when shells were paper, so the elongated crimped plastic hull empties are notorious Stove-pipers in that gun too. The empties are longer than the ejection port.

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Have you measured the chamber length? Yours may be 2-9/16".

I was dove hunting with my first shotgun,a Marlin 120 pump. The doves started flying good,and while working the pump,my fore end slid forward,no longer attached to the bolt. Seems the pin that held the action bars to the bolt had broken ,leaving me with a sky full of birds,and a club in my hands. I managed to break a piece of wire cloth from the blind I was using,and fashion a small pin to replace the broken one,and was able to keep shooting.

This year I double balled an 1858 cylinder. Apparently I had already pushed one ball into the chamber, didn't see it, and put another in. Was wondering why it was so hard to seat the ball below the front of the cylinder and realized what I did. Had to take the nipple off and pound the balls out with my little Lyman hammer while at the range.

I was shooting an 1851 Navy and had to take the barrel off to fully seat a conical bullet that went in at an angle and I didn't have anything to hit the wedge with to get the barrel off, so I covered the wedge and gun with some rags and used a rock. I felt like a caveman trying to kill the evil thunder and fire boomstick.

It worked tho, not a scratch on the gun after using my primitive stone hammer.

All my issues during shooting tend to revolve around cap and ball revolvers, so I can only imagine what I'm gonna do when I buy a .54 Lyman Plains pistol this Spring.

@Walkingfunk -- NICE WORK!!!

One day an old boy, Virg, met up with us at a pond full of Mallards. Dad, Virg, and I snuck up behind the dam to get a shot. Virg whispers, “just a second!”, takes the firming pin out of his mouth, slips in in his old ‘97 and nods his head, Ok! Yup, we got ducks.

Don’t know how funny this is, but I got heavy Remington 243 Win barrel that a local “gun butcher” tried to chamber to 6mm AI with a hand brace/drill through the action without removing the barrel, TWICE! I bought the barrel and weekend use of the reamer for $25. I had an Oberndorf 1942 ‘98 action. Ever try to screw a Remington barrel into a Mauser action? After turning this shank down and cutting a bastard thread and building a bushing out of a piece of vertical, deep well, turbin pump shaft and screwing it on with a bit of blue Loc-Tite, I turned it down and threaded it to Mauser threads, chambered it correctly and Voila, a barreled action. Now a Fajen reject H&R deluxe stock, a bolt turn down job, and my own design muzzle brake later, I’ve got a neat 6mm AI with about $75 and a Saturday in it. How many of those have you seen? I can run 100 gr. bullets with a case full of Re22 at just over 3,300 fps before the gun tells me that’s enough. Might not be funny, but it is an unusual remedy.

I had to drive an hour to get to the range.
The range I belonged to only had a 25 yard and 50 yard range - nothing closer.
I forgot to put the staple gun in the car, so, I had nothing to stick my targets up with.

I had just been to the dentist though & they gave me a bag of stuff.

I took the roll of dental floss & hung an empty shotgun shell from the backstop.
I spent the rest of the morning having a ball shooting at empty 12 ga & 20 ga shells.

I got to where I could hold the sights right where the shell was cocked off to the side & cut the dental floss & drop the shell.

The owner of the range had a fit and yelled at me for not using paper targets

If I knew the number of ink pen springs I have used as temporary springs in guns then I would be ashamed of myself for ruining so many ink pens. The most recent iteration of such was for a friend of mine. He has a RG 25acp that was his mother’s, and it broke the firing pin spring. I stacked 2 ink pen springs in it and sure enough it worked reliably. I asked him if he wanted me to order the $6 spring from Numrich when I bought a couple other items and he wouldn’t even have to pay shipping... nope, he had scavenged a few more of the springs from the same brand of ink pen and has them in a pill bottle in his lockbox where he keeps the gun.

Several decades ago I was poor and living in an industrial area in east Houston; a particularly rough part of town. I bought a beater Colt 1908 Vest Pocket that was missing the firing/recoil spring. Walked down to a machine shop a couple of blocks away, asked about a spring, and a machinist handed me a box of odd parts to dig in and see what I could find. Located a spring that looked like it would work, put it in the gun and shot a couple of rounds into a dumpster. Worked fine. That was 45+ years ago; imagine doing that today.

The best part is I still have that gun, it still has that spring in it, and it still works fine

Over the years I have had to do a few improvised temporary repairs using off the wall springs and things to get the job done until proper parts could be used but this is my favorite:

I have a Savage model 30G “Stevens Favorite” .22lr rifle. Once on a camping / shooting trip to the desert my Savage hammer would not stay cocked. This was quite disheartening as at the tail end of every one of our camping trips with my friend’s family and his friends and myself and my daughter and her friends would have a competition where we would set up little targets, like shotgun shells and pieces of clays all over our range. We would sit at our shooting tables all lined up together to form a firing line and take tour s shooting at various difficult targets. The loser of our little competition would have to go something we all agreed on for the next trip. Usually that had to provide and cook breakfast or lunch on the next trip.
Well, I got my gun box out where I had all my tools and gun cleaning supplies and went to work on my Savage. I found the “step” or trigger interface on the hammer had just broken off. Forgive me, I cannot think of the proper term for this right now.
Anyway, my friend Brian says, “Well, I guess we know who’s providing breakfast AND lunch next time.”
Oh no, no, no...
I got my files out and long story short I reworked a new hammer to trigger interface and through trial and error and testing I had the gun working and the trigger pull was crisp and not too heavy or too light.
The kicker was I commented that that Brian’s mention of breakfast and lunch on the next trip should be the loser’s debt that time and it was agreed.
When it was time to have our little competition I soundly trounced Brian and his son and brother and out of everyone Brian missed the most so I got to call the menu for Brian to bring and cook for the next trip.

That Savage still has that hammer installed, though I do have a new one should my repair ever fail. The gun still fires wonderfully though. I did have to file away the surface hardening of that area of the hammer to create the proper step interface for the hammer to work with the trigger. Perhaps it’s time to go test it out again soon.

My BIL and I were out messing around with some experimental loads and a bullet got stuck just past the chamber. We didn't have any cleaning rods and it was too early to call it a day. He looks over and at his truck and unscrews the antenna. Voila! It just took a couple of taps and we were back in business.

Howland937 said:

A super fancy trigger guard for a cheapie 16ga single shot that didn't have one anymore. Made it out of a spoon handle when I was about 14 probably. My mom, to this day, doesn't know where spoon #8 from the set went.

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That's funny. I've pictures of spoon handles used as levers but never a trigger guard. Nice work!

I have used my own urine to clean a 209 inline when out in the field and low on fresh water.

Used a piece of coil spring from an ink pen to replace one that flew across the shop into a black hole!

That reminds me of the emergency repair In made on a Remington 742 for guy the day before deer season. He'd shot it earlier in the day, and the mag release spring broke. I drove the remainder of it out , and realizing it's shaped like a safety pin spring anyway, I cut the head and tip off one, and slid it in the gun. I function tested it, and when the guy asked how much, I said, "No charge, but after the season I expect you to bring it in so I can put the correct part in."
He did, (got his buck, too) and I put the new one in for the part price and minimum shop fee.

Years ago shooting my dads H&R 922 the plastic mainspring guide broke. Being impatient and working on a pistol that isn’t exactly an heirloom or work of art, I replaced the plastic end with JB weld and ground it down with a dremel. It worked surprisingly well until we got the actual replacement part. Fired at least 7 of 9 shots and had a terrible trigger pull.

While on a training exercise at Camp Lejeune I spent the night in a fox hole with pouring rain all night. (I will never sleep in a pool again.). When I had to fire my M1 at the enemy the rifle would not eject. The stock had swollen from being in that much water. Dropping back behind my fire team, I used my bayonet to shave wood off the stock so the operating rod could move freely. Problem solved.

Twenty-five years ago I went dove hunting more often than I do today. At the time I owned a Ruger Red Label 12 gauge, and a cheap Ranger 16 gauge double.

Opening day of dove season, dark, before sunrise, huddled in a Department of Conservation managed field of sunflowers, sorghum, etc. with God knows how many other hunters. I settled comfortably on my portable shooting stool, loaded the Red Label, and waited. Shortly after daybreak, a pair of doves flew over the field, juking as other hunters missed their shots, and flew over my head. I mounted, swung, pulled the trigger...click.

I had dropped a pair of 16 gauge shells, left over from the previous season in my hunting coat pocket into the 12 gauge chambers. The 16 gauge rims jammed in the 12 gauge forcing cones, much too far away from the firing pins to ignite. The jammed shells would not shake out. I had to search for a stick to use as a ramrod. I had to be careful to avoid encroaching on other hunters's stands in my search. Birds were dropping in the field for the next 15 minutes until I could get my barrels cleared. I did not bag many doves that day.

I vowed never to own a 16 gauge and a 12 gauge shotgun at the same time again. I sold the 16 gauge double within a week. Since then, I have only owned 12 gauge and .410 shotguns.

I had a FIE 25 acp pistol that I got as boot on a trade. The second round that I ever fired through it bent the firing pin. I ended up bending the firing pin back as close as I could and chucking it into a drill and spinning it against a piece of sandpaper till it was true.
The funny thing about this is the guy who traded the gun to me saw me shooting it a few weeks later. He asked me what I had done to the gun to make it reliable. Said he had never seen that gun shoot more than 3 rounds without jamming. So I sold it back to him.

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.