10/22/2012

Happy Ruger .22 caliber rifle day!  Is there such a day?  Probably not, but anyone who is into guns to a moderate degree will notice today’s date, 10/22, is the same as the model number of a Ruger… you know what?  Never mind.  So, what did Tim do over the weekend?  Well, as I mentioned the other day, John was not going to be able to go to the shop for family reasons on Saturday but I really needed to collect rent from him… ok, I just WANTED to collect the rent from him, I didn’t really NEED it.  Anyhoo, Friday after work I swung by his house and did that.  Merci beaucoup, Monsieur.  Saturday I slept in until almost 0730 h.  I headed to the shop a little later, taking the long route so’s that I could hoon a little in Fiona.  At the shop, I took the pistol-grip butt stock off of Pumpenstein and had a look at it.  I'd noticed in the instructions that the spacer I had used was actually for a Remington Model 870 and not for the Mossberg 500 which Pumpenstein is almost similar to… but not quite.  I removed the spacer and had a look at making the stock fit as if it were an M-500.  I took it, the stock not the gun, to the grinder and trimmed some plastic.  I lost the internal spacer for the mounting bolt while I was at it.  I spent a little while searching for that to no avail.  I knew I was going to have to use an additional spacer and hoped, since both are tapered, that it would take the place of the lost one.  I moved on.  I test fit the stock and saw where I needed to trim a little more plastic.  This I did and got the thing to bolt up.  Somehow it feels like the length of pull is shorter even though that dimension has not changed at all.  It’s kooky.  I played with the gun for a bit then decided I wanted to try something with the magazine.  You might remember a few weeks ago when we looked at the mag to see if we could make it accept two more rounds but found that there is a step in the tube stopping the follower.  Well, I thought, “I wonder if shells will slip past the step.”  I removed the magazine tube from the receiver and dropped a shell down it… then another, and another, and another until I'd dropped eight shells down the tube.  I pushed up on the end-cap, floor-plate thingy and all the shells rose with it.  They WOULD go past the Step!  So, if I could get the follower to go past the step, I COULD load more than five shells in the magazine.  Now, what I wound up doing WAS actually John's suggestion from the first day’s experimenting.  I only shot it down then because I was sure the follower was plastic.  Since it is aluminum, I decided to try and shave it down a little in diameter.  I wanted to clean up the grinder marks from when we shaved off the anodizing anyway as well so I put a bolt through the follower and chucked it up in the drill press.  I gently filed on the side while the press spun the follower… sort of like a lathe, but not quite.  After a few minutes of filing, I tested to see if the follower would pass through the hole in the receiver, as it is NOT supposed to do, then dropped it down the magazine tube.  It still stopped on the step.  Oh, it also passed the “not pass through the hole in the receiver” test as well or I wouldn’t have gone ahead with the “drop it down the magazine tube” test.  I took it back to the makeshift lathe and filed a little more.  I did another “receiver test” and then another “magazine test.”  This time it fell all the way to the floor-plate thingy!  I was cautiously optimistic.  I reassembled the magazine tube and loaded shells.  The first five were no surprise when they fit.  Six and seven made me happy.  Eight… didn’t quite make it.  I could get about half of number eight in before everything bottomed out.  Oh well, at least it holds seven now!  I was quite pleased with myself.  I unloaded the magazine and finished assembling the gun.  I then moved on to attaching a six-round shell holder to the butt stock.  The short version of that story is: countersunk the holes in the holder’s backing plate, fingered out where I wanted it on the gun, drilled holes in the stock, mounted the backing plate, mounted the shell holder, filled the holder with shells, loaded the magazine, and then stood back to admire my work.  I then decided I wanted to mount a pistol grip to the fore end.  The short version of that story is: unloaded the magazine, disassembled the gun, drilled a hole in the fore end, trimmed the pistol grip to fit, bolted them together, reassembled the gun, tested for functionality, reloaded the magazine, and then stood back to admire my work.  I was really pleased with my amateur gunsmithery and decided to see what else I could work on at the shop.  I texted John to see if his injunction against engine removal included the fenders.  He replied back that I had permission to remove MY fenders from MY car at MY shop if I wanted.  This I did.  One bolt seized and ripped the nutsert out of the frame while two others just broke the heads off.  I don’t think it is going to be a huge hairy deal, even though they ARE the four bolts at the rear of the two fenders.  We’ll see.  With the fenders, as well as the scuttle and grille by the way, off of the car and put away in safe locations, I decided I'd had enough fun time at the shop.  I went to Disco Tire to have the screw removed from my left front tire.  Did I mention that the other day?  Right before I sent the car to the body shop, I saw a screw in the left front tire.  I know I did.  It WAS there.  I fingered THAT was why the TPMS light was on.  I went to Disco Tire, as I mentioned before.  They got the car in and removed the wheel.  No screw.  He dunked the wheel/tire assembly in the tank.  No bubbles.  There WAS something in the tread which MIGHT have been a plug, but I can't be sure.  What there wasn’t… was a screw.  He checked and dunked the right side just in case I'd been in a mirror universe when I saw the screw… but that wheel checked out as well.  I was flummoxed.  He torqued the lug nuts and shrugged his shoulders at me.  I left and went to the new Taco Villa on 377 in Benbrook.  It was quite tasty.  There were certain aspects of the place which reminded me of Rosa’s.  I'm thinking it is Rosa’s “low end” establishment… somehow.  Or that the entity what owns Rosa’s also owns Taco Villa… or something.  I don’t know.  Anyhoo, it was good enough to go back.  From there I went back to the shop to see if I could finger out why Fiona's horn didn’t work.  Oh yeah, I also disassembled Fiona's stock steering wheel while I was at the shop earlier.  I think filling the holes will be no great shakes… but I want John in on the process.  Anyhoo, the short version of the “take a look at the horn” story is: removed wheel from adapter, saw that everything visible was still connected, decided against removing adapter from column, put wheel back on, and said “fuck it” for now.  I've got almost a year before inspection time.  Hopefully I won't need the horn too often.  Ok, since I have filled a page and a half with Saturday, I'll just go ahead and save Sunday for tomorrow.