13 thoughts on “Still have ten fingers

  1. … And here I was expecting an earth-shattering Kaboom.. This is infinitely better, though.

    • …Tigger? Fancy seeing you here.

      Glad the story has a happy ending!

  2. That’s a good start. Were you a bit nervous (that 1st shot) ?

    I remember some years back shooting my Spanish FR-8 bolt gun the 1st time AFTER I read the warnings about not shooting it with standard .308 Winchester rounds. I had already fired at least two boxes through it with no issues before that. Still – that 1st shot . . . I was a bit concerned.Glad your ‘water pistol is holding up – J.M.B. would be proud of that.

    • Very nervous. But on an intellectual level I knew that I had examined the gun carefully and saw no obvious problems. Sure, I can’t see a deep metallurgical problem with the naked eye, but it seemed like the only issues were cosmetic. Still….I told the person I was shooting with to be ready to get me to the hospital in a hurry.

      • I’d have offered someone else $10 to take the first shot. Then I’d have been ready to take THEM to the hospital in a hurry.

        Did you at least fire it with your non-dominant hand?

  3. Reminds me of when I had spent 2 weeks getting the gunk out of a mosin nagant barrel. It revealed fine pitting which made me take the rifle to a Gander Mountain gun smith along with 5 rounds for a test firing. Gun smith said such pitting was normal for a 1936 rifle of that type and sounded like he had really enjoyed firing off the 5 rounds I gave him. I took it to the range and ran another 50 rounds through it. Then took it home and cleaned and lubed the barrel. It was fine, shot high and right at 100 yards but later realized I had not shot it with bayonet attached. Read where bayonet affects barrel harmonics and re-sighting was not recommended until I had fired it with said bayonet.

  4. We’ll get you a pair of those strong blacksmith gloves for Christmas, so you don’t have to do that next time.

  5. Once I found myself needing to test fire a handgun that had some risk. I put on a glove, stuck my hand around the other side of a tree trunk and dumped a couple rounds into the ground.

    • I think we’ve all done ‘Iraqi Offhand” once or twice when we needed to put a large solid mostly bulletproof object between us and our pet project.

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