How not to spend a friday night.

[Noxx]

About an hour ago, I was detail stripping my wifes P226.

I was doing that, what I'm doing now is cleaning out 40 years of stuff from behind and under my grandfathers workbench.

These two events are connected of course, in the only way they can be, by small things that go "sproing".

While I was removing the extractor, I let the tool slip I was depressing the extractor pin with. The extractor pin, in it's failed bid for freedom, shot directly into my parts pan where it rattled dejectedly for a moment before accepted its captured fate.

Not so for the extractor pin SPRING however, which in it's desperate flight from servitude boinged it's way over the bench, down behind it, and into oblivion.

Not good.

I peered over the end of the bench to have a look behind. It's an inherited home, and an inherited workbench. Behind and below it? Forty years of dust bunnies, spiders, odd parts, and a large roll of fine weave chicken wire.

I've never looked through a roll of chicken wire for a 1/4" spring, and I wasn't planning on starting tonight, so I retrieved my trusty plastic bag-o-salvation, the standard 226 parts kit.

To no ones surprise, the requisite spring, is not included in said kit.

One shop light, one pair of overalls, forty feet of chicken wire, and three black widows later, I still haven't found the little bastard.

Let this be another lesson to you in the "giant plastic bag" method of disassembling boingy bits. :banghead:

 

[DMK]

While I was removing the extractor, I let the tool slip I was depressing the extractor pin with. The extractor pin, in it's failed bid for freedom, shot directly into my parts pan where it rattled dejectedly for a moment before accepted its captured fate.

Not so for the extractor pin SPRING however, which in it's desperate flight from servitude boinged it's way over the bench, down behind it, and into oblivion.

LOL! It's probably out on the town with someone's lost left sock by now.

The first time I field stripped a 1911 I had a similar experience with a guide rod and recoil spring. Luckily for me, although they likely went further, they were a lot larger.

 

[rantingredneck]

Well if it's any consolation I just spent the last hour pulling 200 9mm casings out of the 200 .45ACP casings they were wedged into by corn cob media. Seems that the reloading for dummies manuals don't cover the subject of different size casings in the same tumbler. I won't be doing that again.

 

[bogie]

Kingsize el-cheapo white (well, it used to be...) bedsheet, and take the springy stuff apart in the middle.

The little spring for a Canjar set trigger for a Savage is a LOT harder to find.

Magnets are your friend.

 

[rcellis]

Your post gave me a case of turbo-tummy. Did the same a few years ago with a Buck Mark - dropped the firing pin spring into a deep pile carpet in a poorly lighted room. I was scared to move my feet, but had to get up to get a strong flashlight... then I had trouble finding the flashlight... then took forever to find the little thing in the pile... by the time I found it, I was white hot.

 

[mnrivrat]

I'm betting that most of us can relate to this story. Good luck ! Generaly they don't come back to the light until a replacement is obtained , but good luck does rear its head from time to time.

 

[KHAN]

Man, I've had that happen with one my pistols before. I recall reading about a guy that would get a chair and put it in his shower, cover up the drain and clean his guns in there for that very same reason. Hope you find it.

 

[hankpac]

After you clean out the larger junk...

Take your vacume cleaner, and pull an old nylon stocking foot over the end of the tube, and poke it up into the tube a bit. Turn the vacume on, and with the nylon inverted by the suction, go over the entire area. After awhile, turnoff the vacume, and check the stocking. Your spring should be there after a coupleof tries.

 

[Outlaws]

A refrigerator magnet on a stick can help find some small metal objects in carpet fairly quickly. Maybe not chicken wire, but there is always next time.

 

[Ohio Rifleman]

Maybe you should invest in a magnetic bowl. I did a quicky google search and found this:

http://www.ehobbytools.com/index.html?target=p_530.html&lang=en-us

 

[Noxx]

After almost two hours of looking, I found it.


....in the slide.

Go me.

 

[230RN]

Despite constantly reminding myself to do stuff like that in a plastic bag or near a wall, I popped the tappet and tappet spring out of my SKS recently.

Made quite a dirty black mark in the wallboard, by which clue I managed to locate it pretty quickly, more or less below the dent.

But the spring itself sproinged around and I had to break out my "Saint Anthony" flashlight to find it (under the baseboard heaters) and my automotive magnetic pickup tool to retrieve it. Pep Boys car parts has a pretty good one for about $4 which has a darned strong magnet on it which would probably pick up a cat by the buckle on its collar.

I have also used a bulk magnetic tape eraser (the old kind, with a handle on it) to find itty bitty bits of iron like teeny screws in the carpet and it has a broad "search field." It also releases the stuff you find (there's always more than the part you're looking for) when you let go of the button. And it alerts you with a nice buzzing noise when it finds something.

Funny thing about the jumping parts phenomenon is that it always happens 123.5 milliseconds after you start saying to yourself, "Maybe I'd better cover this before I take it apa..." sproing!

My "St. Anthony" flashlight is one which has a particularly narrow blue-ish powerful beam (no, it's not a "tactical" light) and tends to pick out items which blend into their surroundings in regular room light.

St. Anthony, by the way, is the old Patron Saint of Lost Articles. I don't know what he's the Patron Saint of nowadays.

Maybe the Patron Saint of Dumb Ham-Handed Amateurs Who Don't Learn Their Lessons About Losing Small Parts The First Forty-Seven Times They Lose One.

 

[blitzer0101]

I put the gun and both my hands in to a two gallon zip lock bag. After I had a firing pin spring for a .25 auto go into hyper space never to be seen again I learned my lesson!

 

[budney]

After almost two hours of looking, I found it. ....in the slide.

Don't feel too bad: I haven't learned my lesson yet. I'm so used to searching the carpet under my desk for stuff, that I won't learn to be careful until something REALLY important gets REALLY lost.

--Len.

 

[Mr White]

Last Sunday, it was about 95 degrees, sunny, and 90% humidity here.

I got to spend about 45 minutes crawling thru the grass on my hands and knees looking for the extractor spring from a Garand. Apparently it didn't like the shade where it was being cleaned and decided to get some sun. The little Bastard!

I finally found it by running a big magnet over the area where it flew to.

 

[statelineblues]

Reminds Me of A Poem

Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Part,

How I Wonder Where Thou Art;

I Heard You Hit The G-D Ground,

With A "Ping" You Rolled Around.

Buried In The Carpet Floor,

Or Bouncing Out The Workshop Door;

I Search And Search To No Avail,

You Laugh As All My Efforts Fail.

I'll Find You one Day, Little Part -

With My Bare Feet in The Dark.

 

[wally]

Well if it's any consolation I just spent the last hour pulling 200 9mm casings out of the 200 .45ACP casings they were wedged into by corn cob media. Seems that the reloading for dummies manuals don't cover the subject of different size casings in the same tumbler.

Congratulations, you've passed the super secret reloading society ritual. Welcome to the club!

--wally.

 

[RonJon]

Beretta Tomcat with cracked grips - New grips ordered from Beretta arrive - Owner's manual no help at warning as to what was to come.

Removed grip screw on left grip and super-mini-micro safety spring and even tinier plunger, which was held solely by the grip being present took off!

I organized a search method and proceeded to clean my entire shop with my shop vacuum (only good thing about it - the shop really needed cleaning and this was the incentive at least to do it).

After shop is all cleaned/vacuumed I emptied the cannister onto a clean white paper and used a magnet to scour through the filth - - and found the bugger(s)!

Went to re-install it and they slipped and took off again!!!

(Repeat above until I got smart enough to use clear plastic bag to install them, which was an almost impossible juggling act!)

Got rid of the G-D Beretta (which had many other reliability/quality issues) and traded with dealer for a Ruger Single-Six.

Ron

 

[Wedge]

Congratulations, you've passed the super secret reloading society ritual. Welcome to the club!

The best is when .22LR are inside 9mm are inside .45 Colt...

I find it is better to sort at the range instead of post cleaning now...

 

[armedandsafe]

Was sitting on the Armory floor one day with my squad, showing them how to field strip a 1911 and...YUP...sproing-zip. Straight up into the air.

After about 10 minutes of formation-crawling across the hardwood floor (think basketball auditorium,) 1stSgt comes over. He listened to our woeful story and sat us all back down where we had been working. He took another 1911 and did the same thing, this time WATCHING where the escaping prisoners went. Then we had to drag out the scaffolding to get into the rafters and recover the little buggers from the I-beams.

Pops

 

[whitetiger7654]

Yep I've done it also. One time it was the forward assist on the AR. The whole assembly and spring took off. Luckily they flew right in the trash can next to the table. I had to dig through the trash. I have since learned always put a clean bag in before cleaning.

 

[230RN]

whitetiger7654

Yep I've done it also. One time it was the forward assist on the AR. The whole assembly and spring took off. Luckily they flew right in the trash can next to the table. I had to dig through the trash. I have since learned always put a clean bag in before cleaning.

Now that was funny !

 

[FieroCDSP]

Seems that the reloading for dummies manuals don't cover the subject of different size casings in the same tumbler. I won't be doing that again

Wally beat me to it. That is the initiation to reloading. The next requirement is diving in a half-full trash bin to recover 6 Lake City 30-06 casings tossed by someone, when you don't even own a 30-06.

As for lost springs, the slide-stop spring for my Walther P22 took flight one evening, flying over my desk, and into the carpet in a somewhat cluttered section of my room. Open boxes, trash can....a virtual gauntlet. I finally found it in the carpet, thank God.

 

[Deanimator]

The little spring for a Canjar set trigger for a Savage is a LOT harder to find.

Do you have problem with the adjustment screw backing out under recoil so that the trigger no longer sets? If so, have you found a way to prevent this from happening?

This is why I prefer the Sharp Shooter in my 10FP to the Canjar single set in my 112BVSS.

 

[Wedge]

As for lost springs, the slide-stop spring for my Walther P22 took flight one evening, flying over my desk, and into the carpet in a somewhat cluttered section of my room. Open boxes, trash can....a virtual gauntlet. I finally found it in the carpet, thank God.

That happened to me Thursday as a matter of fact. Fortunately I also found it on the floor on the carpet, it had dropped straight down...