Gunsmithing What were they thinking?

[madppcs]

Not sure if there is a thread on this type of (Gunsmithing) but I was wondering if the actual gunsmiths here could post pics of ridiculous, funny, not funny, lessons learned, or just hear your stories of the things you've seen? I love browsing this section cause I get to see the professional and awesome work of the members here.

But what about when awesome has left the building and your left with someones mistake that you now have to fix or simply walk away from?

 

[cwinston]

Not gunsmithing, but funny as all get out at the time. One Sunday I was working on my rifle and someone knocked on the garage door. It was a friend holding what looked like a tie rod that lost a fight with a beaver. He was bailing hay and broke a tie rod on his tractor in a hole something had dug in the field. It was going to rain and the stores were closed so he found a tie rod in the barn that was too big so he tried to whittle it down with an angle grinder. He then remembered I had a lathe and thought I could help. I told him it would have been easier if he had brought it to me when it was still round, but if I could figure out how to hold it I might be able to help him. It took a little while to find the center of a chewed up beaver looking tie rod, but we got it set up and turned down. He got the hay in and as far as I know that tie rod is still on the tractor. I was glad to be able help a friend.

 

[Carlos Danger]

Long time ago unused to manage a commercial mileork shop. Long story short, we fir busy and needed to install base cabinets at a medical facility one town over. Owner decided to send his brother in law along. He was recently hired to do sales and help her the company booming. His last gig was dental cabinetry......sales. inky thing I could let home do was drill the 2 1/4" drain hole in the back of the cabinets. I marked em all, gave him the Metabo widowmaker with a hole saw and walked away. 10 minutes later guys in the building are bitching and making a fuss and I went to see why. As I approached a blue smoke hung at about 6 feet off the floor. Stunk like hell. Walked in the room and he was still working on the first one. He's leaning on it like he's trying to keep it from running away. "Oh, there you are. Think you could give me a sharper hole saw to work with instead of this piece of shit?!" I walked over, took it out of his hands, switch it to FORWARD, and handed it back to him.

 

[Red_SC]

How about a .875 gas block on a .750 barrel, with long set screws to hold it against the gas port? This was on a duty gun no less, brought in for unrelated work.

 

[Yoteski]

View attachment 7070866

How about a .875 gas block on a .750 barrel, with long set screws to hold it against the gas port? This was on a duty gun no less, brought in for unrelated work.

 

[FishDr]

How about a .875 gas block on a .750 barrel, with long set screws to hold it against the gas port? This was on a duty gun no less, brought in for unrelated work.

Oh my … I have no words …

 

[supercorndogs]

 

[steve123]

I had a new barrel put on my custom 700. A year or so later I went to a 2 day tactical match. On the first stage I couldn't hit some easy targets and hit the hostage which got me a -15, lowest score by far on that stage and dead last, what a way to start, aye??!!

But the zero came back for most of the rest of the match??? I clawed my self back up to the top 20 by the end of the match.

Got home, ordered a action wrench and barrel vice, pulled the barrel, I found out the problem, the asshole GS had epoxied the recoil lug to make up the difference of plunging the reamer in too far. The epoxy was cracking loose. I was so disgusted I never contacted him again.

 

[MarinePMI]

I had a new barrel put on my custom 700. A year or so later I went to a 2 day tactical match. On the first stage I couldn't hit some easy targets and hit the hostage which got me a -15, lowest score by far on that stage and dead last, what a way to start, aye??!!

But the zero came back for most of the rest of the match??? I clawed my self back up to the top 20 by the end of the match.

Got home, ordered a action wrench and barrel vice, pulled the barrel, I found out the problem, the asshole GS had epoxied the recoil lug to make up the difference of plunging the reamer in too far. The epoxy was cracking loose. I was so disgusted I never contacted him again.

You sure it wasn't an OEM Remington 700? Seriously, I've seen three like that.

 

[steve123]

You sure it wasn't an OEM Remington 700? Seriously, I've seen three like that.

That's sad!

Mine was in a MAK rube rifle kit and the recoil lug was helical.