Great Moments in Gun Cleaning

1911, but NO! not the recoil spring plug. I haven't done that yet (but I will ).

Detail stripping the slide, trying very carefully to not release the firing pin, but not carefully enough. ZIP! Whish! right past the ear. Ping!

Luckily, the spring stayed put somehow, and my wife saw where the pin landed through the tears streaming down her face from laughing at me.

Cleaning my AR-15 lower with carb cleaner. Spray it in there, up it shoots into my eye. I drop the lower onto the concrete patio and run into the house screaming like a little girl

Click to expand...

ouch..I unwittingly sprayed that stuff on a g3 copy once.GOT IT nice and clean.. after I thought I was finished,picked it up and wiped it down......along with the cheap paint they coated it with.In the end,nasty headache,black covered hands that stung for almost an hour and a 75 dollar bill to have it refinished the right way.that stuff eats everything.plastic,finishes and skin.

I did it big time!

Well I did it really good this time....Cleaning my DW PMA-S in the garage at my workbench and ever so carefully (as usual) unlocking the barrel bushing. The flimsy plastic bushing wrench slips and...... You guessed it....the spring plug launches itself straight up blasts the overhead flourecent light which in turn showers me and everything else with glass leaving me in total darkness. Wish I woulda had my digi cam handy cause everything, my tool box, my range bag, pistol bag etc..was full of pieces of glass from the 2 flourecent bulbs above. Thank the good Lord I always wear my safety glasses...While cleaning up all that glass with the shop vac I thought I felt a bug crawling down my arm...nope....not a bug....but free flowing blood from a half inch piece of glass that imbedded itself in my upper forearm. I removed it and it only bled more...at that time mrsmack pulls up from work...comes into the garage and sees the blood flowing down my arm and yells wth happened?? I tell her I shot myself..she looks at the bench sees the guns and freaks....(this all happens in seconds) I saw no not like that!!! and proceed to explain to her what happened. I was laughing...however she was not amused.... Probably coulda used a couple stiches in the arm but...... Are all the bushing wrenches made of flimsy plastic??? mack

First time on the range with my first firearm, a G19. Due to being incarcerated* in PRNJ. it has taken me literally months to get the thing.

Took it down to the cellar to clean it afterward. Clear it, aim at a large wooden post, pull the trigger. Click, but no bang. So far, so good. Pull down the slide release with the gun tipped slightly forward...

...and watch the slide sail down to impact the dirty concrete floor behind my workbench.

Fortunately, nothing was broken. (Hey, it's a Glock, after all )

- pdmoderator

* By that, I mean having a residence there. Real jailbirds would have the connections they'd have needed to get the G19 within a day or two, from either a lawless felon or a former aide to Jim McGreasy. But I repeat myself.

Walther P22.... immediately after launching the magazine safety spring across the room onto multicolored shag carpet, and cursing myself for every minute of the half hour it took to find it....

..... *zing!* Off goes the safety pin block spring! Darned little parts...

No "forceful" ejections of necessary parts... yet. I've got a CZ52, so I'm sure I'll slip and let the barrel go flying chamber-first some day.

Mine was with my son's new p01...

He's 15 and lives in NY. I got him this (he picked it out) for when he comes down to vacation with me. I was cleaning all the oil off it from the factory, and giving it the once over, as I wasn't going to shoot it: it was his pistol, and he gets to put the first round down the pipe...

All cleaned up, working the trigger in it to ease it up some for him, and I realize I haven't done the firing pin test. Now, I don't use a pencil, I use a BIC pen. I point it across the room, and just as I'm squeezing the trigger, the phone rings. I live alone, and seldom get calls, so I jump a little and squeeze the trigger off, answer the phone, finish the conversation, and start looking for the pen. I can't find the damned thing. 10 minutes looking, and then out of the corner of my eye I see it...

Stuck in the ceiling...

..Joe

Heh, everyone on the planet who has even a passing relationship with a 1911 seems to have jettisoned the recoil spring and plug. I'm no exception. I owned a Kimber for like 2-3 months, and during that time I must've put like three marks on my dang ceiling. I eventually sold the thing...

The only real issue I've had was with a Glock. Them dern spring cups are small and they LOVE to go zinging across the room. Good luck finding them, I spent like 30 minutes to find one, one time.

I haven't had as much problem with rifles or shotguns.

Saiga 12 magazines now... the springs in those things are as long as my leg. I nicely captured the end of it in my hand as I was easing the baseplate off, and then about another three feet of spring came busting out from the mag body. I managed to hang onto it, but it was pretty funny. My friend watching me in action laughed his @$$ off.

Once while demonstrating reassembly on a Sig 228 to my boss. I had the gun canted to the side and was saying, "so you lock the slide like this, rotate the lever back up, then just drop the slide and...HOLY &%($ing *%&*!!!"

I wasn't paying attention, and my pinky was in the breech when the slide went down. There was a great deal of bleeding and cursing.

Despite the pain, I was able to laugh about it, and my boss learned a valuable lesson that day!

I just have to keep this thread alive with what happend tonight...

2 posts up I wrote of what happend with my son's P01. Tonight, I was cleaning the last of the pistols we took to the range, my Springfield Loaded Operator. I remove the FLGR, and start to remove the plug. Now, the end of it is sharp, so I usually press down on it with the floorplate of a mag, rotate the bushing, slowly let up on the mag, pinching the plug with my thumb and index finger...

...which were covered with CLP. So yeah, the plug launches itself at the ceiling. We've all done it, but this one was special. I no sooner look up to see where it's going, and it's coming back down, and lands on the table, standing straight up, and within 2 inches of the pistol, just about where I normally place it when I remove it *properly.*

I was laughing so hard I knocked the table, and it rolled off onto the floor. THEN I had to go look for it!

..Joe

I underestimated how tightly to hold the spring into the magazine tube on an 870 and sent it flying across the room. As dorky as I may look, I now use eye protection when disassembling any of my guns.

Think about how dorky you'd look with only one eye. (Although I guess with an eye patch you'd be "cool?")

I'll add to the 1911 tales, cleaning my 70 Series Combat Commander at my folks house before we headed out on the 12 hour drive home the next day. Launched the frelling recoil plug across the gravel alley that split their property into the field.

Several long distance phone calls and an hour one-way trip later, I had a replacement. I wasn't about to make that drive without my 1911 in one piece.

I have a new contender in the spring catagory

Mark the calendar. Steve cleaned his P-11, even the bbl, which had not been cleaned since the fall of 2003. <gasp>

I babysat a house for a few days. Since this property has a shooting range out back, and I was trying to keep things "normal" - I shot "out back". Didn't want folks to think the owners were gone .

It rained, and it rained, and I recall the big boat with 2 of each critter came by twice and we waved.

Now I know about the firing pin and firing pin spring. I have witness marks on mine so I know where mine is set best. I have never "launched it" but I can tell it would give a 1911 guide plug a run for the money.

So...I get an idea to test. I get the slide cleaned up and the rest of the gun is ...err...soaking. I'm going to replace the FP and Spring anyway...I figure it is time, with this many years and however many rds I have through it...plus the 1200 rds in two days I just shot.

I find some old ink pen refills that fit the FP Spring. See I had on purpose launched it and it when from one end of the house to the other....big house and the dog helped me find it. [ Thank goodness for rock fireplaces].

With a factory FP spring and metal ball pen refill , standing on the back deck ...my best distance was 35 yds.
I used the range for reference...When dry I walked it off.

Hey these were no good ad pens and freebies. I betcha the owner is trying this for himself after I explained my "research", the dog was my witness and vouched for me.

So perhaps we need a Olympic event, winners from the Redneck Cup can represent the US.

Anti gunners don't have fun like this, must be boring to just deal with jars that won't open, or the stapler gets hung up.

Ka- Ching....

I had just brought a brand new Kimber 1911 home from the gun store. I was 15 and super excited to learn all about it and I figured the best place to start would be to read the manual.

I carefully read every word and decided the thing to do first was field strip the pistol.

So, I re-read the section of the manual regarding basic take down and saw the words:

"Caution: Recoil spring and barrel brushing under pressure."

And I thought, "Hm, pressure. I'll be careful." but really having no idea exactly what was under pressure.

Needless to say, I turned the brushing and the plug flew out and hit me straight between my eyes. The plug hit me so hard I fell our of my chair screaming convinced for second I had somehow managed to shoot myself.

The plug slammed into my head, then bounced across 15-20 feet of living room and landed behind the fireplace on the wood stack (I spent approximately 2 hours searching for it).

/none of this stopped me from going out to shoot it later.
//glad to have learned I'm not the only one to make such a mistake.

Impressive thread necromancy.

But in this case, I say that in a positive light!

I can't remember ALL the details, but I was taking apart a Remington 870 Express Super Magnum. At the time, I had started playing the guitar, and had deliberately grown my fingernails out long for that purpose, so I was having a h**l of a time depressing the springs to release the action from the receiver.

Well, a friend of mine was there, so he offered to help.

In our youthful brilliance, we decide he should hold the weapon by the stock, and push the springs in, while I grab onto the pump and pull it free.

He tells me that he's got the springs depressed, and I feel some parts catching, and other kind of resistance, so I work the pump a little, then give it a good yank when I feel the parts separating from each other. Still doesn't come free.

Well, after fiddling around a bit, I eventually gave it another good yank. As you may have predicted by now, both of us ended up on our asses, each with half of a Remington 870 in hand.

I have since cut my fingernails, and have considerably more practice in disassembling that weapon.

Getting my finger caught by the SKS trap door in the buttstock while trying to remove that %()#% cleaning kit. Wife looking at me funny while I'm hopping around yelling choice words with a rifle hanging off my thumb.

"Getting my finger caught by the SKS trap door in the buttstock "

Ok, now that one I have done to, that is the first and last time I took it out.

wasn't me but a kid i know had a 22 fail to fire in an older gun and it wouldn't extract. he was about to use a cleaning rod from bore to bash it out with the bolt still in and closed he got a lil testy when i hollered at him i was afraid it would fire and send the rod through his hand

Zooooom

Ahh the tales of **** flying when you take a gun apart for the first time. Probably the most important thing when cleaning a gun is safety glasses, without a doubt a guide rod spring could knock one out and leave you shooting funny forever. ive seen some crazy **** happen when taking a firearm apart but nothing beats the amount of people that have shot the slides across the room. its just down right funny. i almost did it with my kel-tec p11 but noticed the barrel wasnt fully forward because it wasn't locked in.

I have had the slide sail accross the room and a dent in the ceiling from a firing pin.

I recently started to clean a newly acquired Browning Buckmark. As is my routine, I removed the grips, turned the gun over and parts starting falling...I found everything, (so I thought) and after cleaning the gun reassembled it. Problem was the trigger wouldn't engage after cycling the slide. I figured out, with the help of a fellow poster on this forum, that a small spring was missing. I searched the entire workbench and garage floor with no success. Finally gave up and went to Numrich's website and ordered the replacement. A couple hours later I picked up the cigar ashtray to empty it and got to wondering...sure enough, there was the errant spring in all the ashes and Rocky Patel butt's...so, cleaned it and reassembled one last time. Now to return that spring to Numrich...

I was at the armouries for post exercise drills, cleaning weapons that were used (blanks) over the weekend. We turn all weapons into the lockup with the bolt carriers removed, and the 9mm hi power is stored without the barrel/chamber installed by placing the recoil spring and guide into the frame, inserting the takedown lever and then bringing the slide over the spring and locking it by applying the safety which locks the slide.

Long story short, my buddy cocks the hammer on his 9mm and I draw mine, bring it up and release the safety unknowingly sending the slide flying into the kevlar helmet clipped to his tac vest, needless to say, he said "You got me"

Quite a while back, my first time taking apart a 1911 I had some trouble. It took me about 90 minutes to remove the slide, it finally came off when I realized that I had not removed the slide lock...

I had some cheap Beretta 92magazines, both 35 and 20 rounders. I decided to try putting the spring from the 35 rounder in the 20 rounder to see if it would work better...it did, but when I tried to remove the floorplate for cleaning it got stuck. After a minute of fiddling with it I finally got it to slide off...and whack me in the middle of the forehead.