Andrew’s Wisdom for the Week!
This will be filed under Andrewisms, and with good reason. When I have a wise thought, I’ll share it with you. And today’s wise thought is this:
Never disassemble something that has more moving parts than you have brain cells.
How did I come to this revelation, you ask? Simple. Experience.
I took apart my Grandfather’s antique shotgun today to clean it. It’s 105 years old, although as far as I can tell worthless monetary wise (W.H. Davenport shotguns are apparently semi-common). But I wanted to clean it up so I can take it to a gunsmith and find out if there’s something I can shoot in it (it’s a 12 gauge, I’m fairly sure, but I’ve heard that since the gun’s so old, it might take the everyday target loads you’d buy at Joes).
So I found out that the area that was supposedly for black powder at one point in time was also the screw that the break in the breach hinged upon, so I took it off. Then I took off the front grip, before long I’d started unscrewing things that I didn’t know what they were attached to.
This was my first unbelievably bad idea. Why? Suddenly, the hammer wouldn’t stay cocked back, and the trigger wouldn’t bounce forward.
Well, that’s it Laine, you done it this time.
I frantically started trying to figure out what I did, which resulted it my removing the stock and finding two pieces that were loose inside, which coincidentally turned out to be two little levers held in by, you guessed it, the screws I had previously removed, and so I had to figure out the functions of each and reattach them as such.
The good news: I now know how W.H. Davenport shotgun firing blocks work.
The bad news: I just spent an hour figuring it out when I just wanted to clean it and go to lunch.
Well, we gotta learn somehow… :-p
so did it get back together?
Yep. She’s as good as new.
…
Well, as new as a 105 year old shotgun can be…