That moment where you realize you might be an idiot!

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MacAR said:
That's sorta like shooting a squirrel or rabbit with a 30-30... you better be a damn good shot or you're gonna have mess! Ask me how I know.
Click to expand...

My buddy and I shot some rabbits one snowy day when we were originally just out to shoot targets. Bunnies were running around everywhere. I shot 3 with a .17HMR and 2 were head shot. He shot 2 with a 30-30, both through the ribs. We ended up with the same amount of meat.

To the OP, manuals are vastly overrated. Do you read the owners manual every time you get a different car? TV or other appliance? Just tear out the troubleshooting page, stash it somewhere never to be seen again and pitch the rest. Years after you trade off the gun that was acting up, you'll find your troubleshooting page and kick yourself for getting rid of a perfectly o.k. gun. You may even have an "Aha" moment...but until then, you always have the fine folks here at THR to bail you out.
 
twofewscrews said:
For a bit of fun,

So, I recently bought a Maverick 88 as my first shotgun. I took her home, read the manual, racked her a couple times and went to bed. Over the next week I looked at the manual a few times over and then took her to the range. To my horror I found she only accepted two round instead of five. I searched the internet for how to fix what and what to replace parts with. I posted on this very forum and got an answer. A wooden dowel is used to plug the magazine tube for bird hunting. Removed the dowel.

Today I was trying to figure out if the tang safety on the Mossberg 500 makes it harder to disassemble then the Maverick 88 which has a cross bolt safety. I went to Mossberg's site and downloaded a 500 manual for the schematics and then I reread my 88 manual. I found this line on the fourth page of the 88 manual:

Note: to comply with U.S. migratory birds, six shot models are shipped with a wooden dowel inserted into the magazine tube which limits magazine capacity to two (2) shells.

Either I didn't read the manual as thoroughly as I should have or I think I am a better reader then I really am. It was at that moment that I realized I might be an idiot. Either way, next time I get a new firearm, I'm not only going to read the manual, I'm going to copy it word for word so I don't miss anything.

Thanks to all the people who refrained from telling me to just read the manual.
Remember, there are no dumb questions, but there are dumb answers.
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RTFM has always been excellent advice - in today's world, you need to get past the first 12-15 pages of legal mumbo jumbo to get to the important stuff, but it is all in there.
 
I once bought a j-frame and decided to go through it, to replaced a couple springs. After taking the side plate off, as I disassembled the innards, some pieces flew into the carpeting. I searched for a while, recovered everything but the hammer block. I looked over every possible place, swept with a magnet, nothing. Went to Numrich's and ordered one.
While waiting for delivery of the part, I discovered that DAO j-frames don't have hammer blocks like the M60 DA/SA does.

S9 now there is a j-frame hammer block sitting in the gun parts container.
 
Howland937 said:
I shot 3 with a .17HMR and 2 were head shot. He shot 2 with a 30-30, both through the ribs. We ended up with the same amount of meat.
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Really? My experience has been more... bloody, if you will. The last rabbit I shot with a 30-30 made a wicked smear in the mud and it was then I decided that rabbit hunting was more a 22lr proposition.

Mac
 
Manual? Oh! Ok...Manuel Labor. The guy that works for cash...oops...STRIKE THAT (LoL)

NO seriously...reading the manual for a lowly EMERSON WINDOW A/C UNIT is mandatory. Worst conflagration of a remote and computer screen in a hand held device I've ever seen!!


New shotgun? 15 posts so I presume new(er) to shooting? U R dong fine:thumbup: Now, if you can 1)find and 2) remove the plug on a Benelli Ethos, U R a baaaddd man (comes in 3 shot ONLY config) so just remember, some shotguns are config'd that way from the factory.


What's your game? SD:cool:? :eek:Groundhog defense? Rabbit :scrutiny:stew? >>>HOW DOES IT SHOOT???
 
edwardware said:
Heresy!

You should begin by completely disassembling it, rolls pins to detents, then RTFM.
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Haha, my buddy at work just spent $1700 on a new Tikka precision rifle- his first bolt action.

When he opened the box, he realized it shipped with the bolt packaged in a seperate bag. He watched a YouTube video of how to completely disassemble the gun figuring that at some point he would discern how to install the bolt. Step-by-step, he followed along, carefully breaking down his brand new rifle.

Of course, at the very end, he watched in incredulously as the narrator just pulled the trigger and slid it in. He also had the striker in the "fired" position and had to turn it to "cocked."

When I finally stopped laughing, I asked him why he didnt just call me?:D
 
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If I'd just spent $1700 on a new rifle (I've actually spent more) I would absolutly read the manual figure out how to install the bolt.:D

Twenty one years ago I bought a Remington 700 in .30 - '06 and couldn't operate the bolt until I read the manual and the keyed safety mechanism had to be unlocked :scrutiny: before the bolt would move. :mad:
 
edwardware said:
Heresy!

You should begin by completely disassembling it, rolls pins to detents, then RTFM.
Click to expand...

I used to sell auto parts, we'd get folks in who didn't understand why their car started acting up. Bells, lights, etc going off when or not as needed. We'd open up the owners manual after they came back and got it out of the kitchen drawer !!!!!!!! and usually found it was an optional menu item on their in dash car screen. They had swiped instead of pushed.

I made it my life's mission to ask for the owner's manual from then on, and passive aggressively was kind of pointed about it. "They are all so different now we'd have to read it to see why it's doing that. Oh I'm sure the dealer could tell you but they do the same and the Service Department will charge for the visit, if you can get me the manual it will tell us exactly what to do." A motor vehicle manual should be mandatory for sale with a used car. But, that's just me looking out for the consumer. I hope the ATF isn't scanning this thread.

I'm happy to read that the OP can read and did so, the downside is that the later generations are the reason the term "illiterati" was coined. Those under 40 have demonstrated no idea what an index or table of contents does, and looking things up? Then you get into "but the salesman told me it would!" yet I've never met one who even knew if it was OHC or not. Gun store clerks are better informed. Really.

Yes, please, read the manual, FROM COVER TO COVER, look for the ten pages or so that tell you the different stuff. And no, don't abuse the firearm in any of the 87 ways listed in the first pages. Who does that? Apparently someone did. As for the P365, no, it won't tell you how to reinstall the slide lock or slide lever strut, because it told you not to remove the FCU in the first place, so, yeah, been there done that just this week. And, the internet is your friend. There's a video about how to take down the FCU to it's bare components.

With that in mind: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=how+to+remove+the+plug+from+my+maverick&ia=web&iai=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juf50U3j-Og&pn=1
 
Tirod said:
I used to sell auto parts, we'd get folks in who didn't understand why their car started acting up. Bells, lights, etc going off when or not as needed. We'd open up the owners manual after they came back and got it out of the kitchen drawer !!!!!!!! and usually found it was an optional menu item on their in dash car screen. They had swiped instead of pushed.

I made it my life's mission to ask for the owner's manual from then on, and passive aggressively was kind of pointed about it. "They are all so different now we'd have to read it to see why it's doing that. Oh I'm sure the dealer could tell you but they do the same and the Service Department will charge for the visit, if you can get me the manual it will tell us exactly what to do." A motor vehicle manual should be mandatory for sale with a used car. But, that's just me looking out for the consumer. I hope the ATF isn't scanning this thread.

I'm happy to read that the OP can read and did so, the downside is that the later generations are the reason the term "illiterati" was coined. Those under 40 have demonstrated no idea what an index or table of contents does, and looking things up? Then you get into "but the salesman told me it would!" yet I've never met one who even knew if it was OHC or not. Gun store clerks are better informed. Really.

Yes, please, read the manual, FROM COVER TO COVER, look for the ten pages or so that tell you the different stuff. And no, don't abuse the firearm in any of the 87 ways listed in the first pages. Who does that? Apparently someone did. As for the P365, no, it won't tell you how to reinstall the slide lock or slide lever strut, because it told you not to remove the FCU in the first place, so, yeah, been there done that just this week. And, the internet is your friend. There's a video about how to take down the FCU to it's bare components.

With that in mind: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=how+to+remove+the+plug+from+my+maverick&ia=web&iai=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juf50U3j-Og&pn=1
Click to expand...
Many auto manufacturers no longer provide a printed owners manual. Its usually on a flash drive or you have to download it now. Guess how many people bother? Lol.

The most important thing they miss out on by not reading it is that their new car no longer comes with a spare tire......:D
 
NIGHTLORD40K said:
The most important thing they miss out on by not reading it is that their new car no longer comes with a spare tire.
Click to expand...
In a ploy to sell more OnStar subscriptions...
Or a subtle hint that most folks nowadays are
un-qualified to change a tire.

Most everything that has a manual also has a downloadable PDF form available for free online anyway. Save the trees.
 
MacAR said:
Been there, done that. Got the t-shirt and still didn't RTFM! :rofl: I recall taking apart my 1897 at the kitchen table one night to change a couple springs. Three hours and a lot of cursing later, I had it back together. And don't even get me started on replacing the mag spring in my Model 12! Probably shoulda read a schematic or some instructions... "we don't need no stinking manual"... but I did!



That's sorta like shooting a squirrel or rabbit with a 30-30... you better be a damn good shot or you're gonna have mess! Ask me how I know....

Mac
Click to expand...
I shot a squirrel from the side through the chest with a .308 Win.. 180 gr. Silvertip once. All it did was drill a neat .30 cal. hole clean through. Said squirrel ran straight up to the top of the tree then died and fell.
 
Yeah, the dowell thing is odd. My wife won a 88 in a raffle and I had just dumped it in the safe a few years ago.

Last year I decided to shoot it with some slugs to put drain holes in a new burn barrel.

Except my particular model wouldn't accept any shells in the magazine, not a limit of two.

Took me a couple minutes to decide to break it down and figure out what was wrong.

At least my couple Remington's I had in the past included the plastic inserts in the box, not pre-installed.
 
I work at a gun store with two Army veterans in their late twenties. They are always assembling guns and disassembling guns without reading the manual first. About 15% of the time it doesn't go well and I ask them again did you read the owners manual first. Nope. I think it is a generational thing.
 
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