Stupid mistakes

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Sentryau2

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Ok when I first got my ar-15 I took everything apart to lube it up and look at it try and get familiar with it. Well while I was doing that I got complacent. I was done so I assembled what I thought was everything........I go to do a function check and pull back the CH quickly......SURPRISE no buffer spring :banghead: at this point I felt like a total fool but finally managed to correct my mistake with a towl and some banging on a table (I called a friend who suggested this as he had made the same mistake when he was young) So I have a question how many of you have made stupid but relatively harmless mistakes, or things that you have kicked yourself for? I STILL kick myself for forgetting the buffer spring
 
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That's nothing, try putting it back together minus the cotter pin that retains the firing pin. I saw that once, I belive the firing pin fell out the back of the bolt and without the firing pin in there the bolt doesn't rotate and unlock when you pull the charging handle. I didn't see what the armorer did to get it out.
 
No big deal. I think at some point every has forgot some part. I've never personally missed the buffer and spring, but I've seen it done a few times. Think of it this way, now you know how to fix it so you can help the next bone head!
 
I cleaned and put my M-16A1 all back together after a day at the range and was one of the first five privates to present it to the drill instructor for inspection. Once. After 1,000 push ups for every speck of carbon he could pull out of the thing with a dental pick, I learned to just sit and clean away until the time allotted was up.
 
I have three work benches. One in my office for super clean light assembly.

Two in the shop. One is for oily reassembly, medium/good cleanliness and where I do my general gun cleaning. They last is the hammer/engine bench. It's not filthy, but I don't typically do much firearm work there unless I need to do some moto-tool work on the Python.........ok ok, just kidding about the moto-tool.....

Anyway I bought a Colt Trooper for less than a song and decided to take it all the way down to get the ancient dried grease out of it. For nothing other than laziness I just laid a towel down on the hammer bench and started to take the gun apart - well, not sure if you have seen a latch spring on a Trooper, but I barely met one as it went flying past me......:what: and after that it did not leave a forwarding address. I searched for several hours (You think the internet is bad - talk about PURE time wasted). I gave up. Now I have had a few things launch before and some searches took awhile and the parts/springs were a LONG distance from the source.....the next morning I swept the area with a magnet to no avail. I wrapped the gun up and put it in the safe. Searched a bit on line, but didn't order.

Two weeks later, I open a drawer on another bench to get something out. There sits a spring that looks exactly like what I was looking for. Amazing, I've never owned such a revolver and never stored springs in those drawers........I had spent all my time looking on the floor, never thinking a spring could so cleanly fly into a gap that is almost the exact size of the spring itself.
 
Remove the stock and run a cleaning rod up the hole the stock screws in to. A neat, clean work area reduces chances of leaving something out, for me anyway.
 
Went shooting once without any ammo. Left it on the couch at home. Everyone else thought it was hilarious.
 
Made a bunch of loads to test with my shiny new 38spl revolver.

Had all the ammo packed up with hearing pro, eye pro, got to the range unpacked the ammo and realized I left the revolver at home.

Oops.

I've taken many guns apart not knowing how they go back together.
 
Once put a revolver back together, function checked, everything was perfect...EXCEPT...there was an orphaned pin lying on the bench when I was done!

Took it back down ... nothing looks missing. Put it back together, everything seems perfect. Tried holding the pin up to the gun and seeing where it might have fit. No dice. Looked for 15 minutes at the schematic on Numrich's site and just could NOT find that pin.

Then, suddenly, it dawned on me. It was a take-down assist pin I'd kept around from another gun altogether and I'd left in my screwdriver kit for years! Somehow it fell out on the bench and got mixed up with my wheelgun parts!
 
I used to rent a house that had a workbench in the basement. One evening I was down there taking apart my PSP-25 and one point a spring from the trigger came loose and shot up in the air. The spring seemed to arc through the air slowly only to land in the drain in the middle of the basement never to be seen again.
 
When I assembled my first AR lower, I managed to somehow put 2 buffer tubes in it. Could not get the bolt back for anything. :) Not a hard fix once I figured out what I had done wrong.
 
My latest Stupid Mistake was just last week. I was doing literally some kitchen table gunsmithing as I detail stripped the upper of my 7 month old Glock 26, including removing the firing pin spring from the firing pin.

I saw a video on YouTube showing how to use the slide as a jig to hold the firing pin and spacer sleeve backwards in the striker channel while you push down the firing pin spring and reinsert the spring cups.

Well, I'm here to tell you that I launched both the firing pin spring and one spring cup straight up, hitting the ceiling, and going who knows where. I finally found the firing pin spring, but that little black plastic spring cup was a hopeless cause. With only one spring cup, a Glock is just an expensive paperweight.

After an hour on my hands and knees looking under the stove, fridge, dishwasher, and the rest of the kitchen/dining room area, and a futile trip to my local gun store trying to procure new spring cups, I finally broke down and ordered a new set from Brownells. This was on a Friday.

Sunday morning, as I was getting ready for church, I looked down and right there, next to the bed, sitting on the carpet in plain sight was none other than the missing spring cup! How it got there, halfway across the house and three rooms away from where I lost it, and how I missed it for two days I'll never know.

What I do know is I now have two spare sets of spring cups still in their Brownells packaging...
 
Just out of college, many years ago, I took a luger apart. Completely apart. I could not get it back together. I had gotten it from my Dad. Over the phone, from memory, he walked me thru it. He remembered exactly how to do it. I never did that again. I would if I could call him again though.
 
I married my first wife.....:banghead:


I have driven 45 mins to the range, and forgot the key to the trigger locks......
 
Like to blinded myself in my right eye ,letting the magazine spring retainer of my 870 slip through my fingers, it went between the bottom of my glasses and my cheek bone and hit me in the eye, I thought the spring ran up my right nostril, but it just glanced off and barked some skin.

I had more unsuccessful launches of detent balls, coil mainsprings and numerous other firearm parts that have names I can't mention on this family oriented site, than the USA and Soviet space programs put together !

More on a hand loading flub, using a kinetic bullet puller on a 415 grain bullet 45-70 round will fire the case out of the chuck , looked everywhere for that piece of brass, found a week later in the gun locker, had the door open about an inch, went right through with out making a noise.

Why when you launch a small part does it have to ricochet from the ceiling to the wall to the bench then the closed window before it lands on the floor ? It kind of gives you whiplash trying to follow it's path on the chance you may be able find the !@#$%^& thing.
 
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I have driven 45 mins to the range, and forgot the key to the trigger locks......
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I drove at least that far once and left the bolt to my rifle at home. *sigh*

Now I never store bolts separate from the rifle and never bring only one gun.

I have also gone to the range with no ammo before. Left it sitting by the back door. :eek:
 
Mistakes?!:cus
Nope, never, not me....:D

My first .45 a.c.p. pistol was a Les Baer Premier II Long Slide. I bought it through Gil Hebard (R.I.P.) in Knoxville Il. I highly respected his advice in all things firearm related and I was a fairly new guy to the sport. I finally got my new pride and joy and took it home. I decided to take it apart and check things out. A recoil spring plug can launch at a astounding speed and secrete itself in a dark and hereto unknown space in my yet to be developed gun room. Oh the shame!:banghead::eek: To have to go back and admit my folly to my mentor .:barf: So, after an extended and frustrating forensic search, AHA! there it was hiding in my cat's litter box, cleverly disguised as...well a little turd.:what::D After extracting said deposit, a little Kroil and a wipe:uhoh: all was good.
and the saga continues.....;)
 
Ok......

I was working on my 8mm mauser, and had the bolt under pressure in a vise to work on the safety........ The firing pin slipped.... And stuck in the door behind me.....
 
Bought a new AR, popped the back pin and it would not open up. Tried it again with the same result. Finally, after a couple of days, I realized there was an empty chamber flag in the chamber. Duh!!
 
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