Thought I would share my frustration caused by my own stupidity.
I recently came by an early Win 94 in 30WCF. THe serial puts it in the early twenties. Real nice shape, very little rust and a great shooter. So this morning I decide to dismantle it completely and give it a good cleaning. I feared it had not been cleaned in its entire life. Let me say I have been a tinkerer most of my life, and was raised by a father that was a smith. So I knda know what I am doing. Here comes my moment; After cleaning every part, removing 80 year old grim I started to reassemble this fine old gun. Well you guessed it, I can't find the sear for the life of me. I have ripped the office apart, magnets, lights, garbage etc...
Nowhere to be found. If it was a screw or pin, I could almost see it happening, but the sear?? DAMM!! What makes so frustrating is I know better! I even built a special tray for this exact process, and ... welll...... AHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!
Anyway I thought I would pass this along and see what type of little mistakes have caused grey hairs like the 10 new ones I got today!

Still stressing,
JAG
Hood River, OR

Yeah I did somehting dumb like that a couple of years ago. I had outgrown my gun safe and built a vault in my house to handle the extra firearms I had been acquiring. I had pulled the bolts from several of my rifles to make them fit better and discovered I was missing a bolt for a pre 64 model 70. I looked high and low, unloaded and reloaded the vault and the safe and my dresser and every container in my house for at least three weeks. Decided that enough was enough and If I still had the darned thing it would show up. Ten minutes later there it was in plain sight next to a box of stuff I had decided to get rid of.

For some unknown reason I accepted the offer of a bay fishing trip with my brother. I don't like fishing or my brother. You will see why.

After several hours of no fish my brother is drunk and the motor on the boat will not start. He takes the cowl off the motor and has some of the parts off. He places the bolts on top of the fly wheel as he takes the parts off.

Next thing you know he hits the starter and all of the bolts go flying out into the water in a nice even pattern all around the boat.

I was reassembling a 1911 in my shop. SPROINNGG! There goes the recoil spring plug!

It was lost for 3 weeks, and I had dismantled everything around it, loking high and low wiht a flashlight.

I went to grab my chainsaw the other day, to remove a tree that had fallen on the driveway. There it is, all nice and shiny. I must have looked there 100 times!

JAG,

Finding the sear is actually pretty simple, just order another sear from gunparts corp, install it then wait about 12 hours, and your sear will reappear like magic!

How about taking a Ruger Mark II apart....I know you have to tilt it back and to the right or left while balancing on one foot with your mouth and tongue held just right, but I keep taking the blasted things apart to clean....

I also have a nice dent in the ceiling from a stray Kimber spring..Need safety glasses on when cleaning that blasted thing!!

Mike

Yeh, little tiny springs and ball out of an adjustable Colt anaconda target rear sight. if you tackel one of these make sure you order two sets of parts that way you only pay shipping once. HaHa

[This message has been edited by HIVELOSITY (edited 05-22-2002).]

It is like they say, get a new one and the lost one will reapear from beond

How about when you are replacing a rear leaf blade on a S&W wheel gun. The tiny pointed plunger and spring in the windage screw. Sure has a habit of flying out at the worse time. I now always use a big open ended box on my bench in front of me and an apron to catch flying parts so that they don't go to parts UNKNOWN. I call it my bench disassembly box. Saves those Gray hairs, I have enough of them already.

I knew a gunsmith about 20 years ago that had a cigar box FULL of old springs, firing pins, sears, and other parts sitting on his bench, that he would dig through to find replacement parts for pistol repair. One day I was watching him disassemble a .25ACP import and as the springs and some other parts flew out, they ended up landing in the cigar box. Talk about having parts left over! He spent two days finding out which were the correct parts for the pistol
Nashcat

My worst case incident happened way back when I was still living with my Mother.
I just got a Walther P38 pistol,and HAD to detail strip it.
All went well until I pushed the pin out of the barrel retining lever. The tiny spring sprung.
Buying a part for a foreign pistol,in 1948 was not a consideration.
Fortunately,My Mom agreed to not make my bed,and stay out of the room entirely.
I found it a week later.
That cured me of detail striping every new gun that I got.
Frank

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Frank

I had just finished checkering a small metal tab for a "Brno" style bolt release button on a mauser, when I decided to buff it a bit with a wire wheel... I think it must have gone into orbit.

Garand extractor springs. Flew so fast I couldn't see it go, not even a blurr. Hit the garage wall with a resounding wack, from 15 feet. Didn't even bother looking. Just a reminder to keep a rag handy to cover such sproingy things as you take them apart.