Finagler 6853 Life Posted February 17, 2020 Share Posted February 17, 2020 It was a challenge. A couple weeks back I picked up a Ruger Wrangler. For $200, the fit and finish are acceptable. I figure you get what you pay for. After I got it, I started to work with it and continue to believe that the mainspring is more than what is needed but what is entirely unacceptable was the loading gate spring. Even my calloused fingers found it difficult to the point of painful to pry it open. This had to change. I opened the gun up, looked around to familiarize myself with how the disassembly would take place. Looks like my Vaquero but it has been years since I took that apart to replace and lighten up the springs. Had to jump start the rememberer in my gray matter to bring it back. I didn't have time, at the time, to start tearing it apart then so I put it back together to work on another day. I'm the kind that likes to start a project and finish it in the same day. I don't like carry overs to the next day, week, month, etc. Git er done. So last Friday I have the time, no one is after me, too cold to be outside, chores all done, I go to the man cave to do surgery. I did not start well. Instead of taking the grip panels off, cock the hammer, put a retaining pin to hold the mainspring under tension to make removal and re-installation easy(er), I have a brain fart and take the handle screws out. It all comes apart really easy but when the mainspring strut drops out on the workbench, oh fecal matter. So now I take the grip panels off and remove the spring and the spring retainer and put them all aside for later assembly. I get the loading gate spring out without any further mishaps, get my trusty Dremel tool out and proceed to carefully remove some material from both sides of the spring and the bend in the spring. After I get, what I thought was an appropriate amount off, I start the reassembly. I get the loading gate spring in and now it is on to the mainspring and the grips. Ever try to push a rope up hill? That is what it is like compressing the mainspring onto the strut. Mind you, I don't have a fixture for this, just common hand tools. I tried threading the spring on with the spring retainer pin in place and that worked to a point. The point to where I get to the end of the spring and the spring is bent so the end touches the coil behind it. I"m not going to get that pin through that coil. Then there is the matter of the spring retainer that needs to be under the pin. More fecal matter. So being the genius and finagler that I am, I attempt to compress the spring with another pliers, pull the pin out, place the retainer on and get the pin back in. Did you know that the speed of a compressed mainspring at takeoff is faster than the eye can see? I hear the spring land somewhere in my cave so I start looking around. After a half an hour, I give up. I pull out my stash of miscellaneous springs and I find one that is a relatively good fit. A bit on the soft side but I think it will work to just put things back together to try out the loading gate. I've about worn the skin off my fingers and thumbs, I'm frustrated but by some miracle, out of the corner of my eye, between a plastic storage box and a bag of wads, there it lay. Saints preserve us. Carefully take the pin out that is holding the retainer in place, take off the donor spring, put original spring on, start compressing the spring, grab retainer and while my hands are shaking from holding the spring under tension, I slide the retainer on, grab the pin and start aiming at the very tiny hole on the strut to hold it all together. You guessed it. WE HAVE LIFT OFF! Well this time I managed to hang onto the spring but the retainer is gone. I thought I hear it rattle around on the shelf above me, so I start poking around all the junk I have stored there over the period of 25 years. I'm not finding it. So now I'm frustrated, my fingers hurt and I need a beer. I am bummed for sure. Fecal matter. Saturday. Still cold out. Mom is going shopping with daughter #2. I'm going to the gun shop. The shop I frequent is owned by a vet and his wife. Every year they have one of the girl scout troop come in and sell cookies. They also do a deal where if you buy a box, donate it, they will ship them off to service members stationed over seas. I go up to see if there is something that needs to follow me home as well. A well used but in good shape, Beretta 85 followed me home. Did I need it? Of course I did. I called out to me. I also buy a box of cookies, told the den mother to put a box in for the service members and use the remainder of the $20 I gave her to help offset the cost of shipping for the gun shop. This was shaping up to be a better day. I stop at another gun shop on the way home. It was on the way. I'd stopped there before and two items I've been eyeing up for a while I finally talked to the owner about. He had 13 Flambeau shell boxes marked at $4.99. $4.99 was too high but I wanted the shell boxes for personal reasons. My dad and his brother started Flambeau. I offered him the whole lot for $3.00 a box. He took it. They also had a scale pan I've been looking for at $1.99. SCORE! He has a Ruger Vaquero/Single Six in .32 H&R mag. He had it marked at $509.00 on sale. It has been sitting there a while. Some surface rust had started forming on the case coloring and the hammer. I pointed it out to him and he said he would do $460.00 cash. I don't need this one as I already have 2 for the girls to shoot but it would make a good back up. I may go back and get it at a later date but I was happy with my Beretta, shell boxes and scale pan. I figured I'd spent enough for one day. Should have stopped there first. I get home, mom isn't back from shopping yet, still cold out, nothing worth watching on the boob tube so I decide to take the long walk to the man cave and start looking for the spring retainer that I launched yesterday. I'm standing on my tilting chair, there isn't room to get anything else in there, sorting through years of junk. Old bottles for storing stuff. Looking through containers of leather conditioner, my stash of strike anywhere matches, bottles of different gun cleaners, one large mouse nest. I've been at this for a good half hour and as I pause to take a breath, about to give up and place an order with Brownells, out of the corner of my eye, again, I spy the retainer, radiating in all its shiny glory. Happiness exudes from my lungs. YES! I look down at my bench upon all the crap I now need to throw away. I complete the garbage run and set about to put the mainspring on the strut and get that retainer on. With great care and precision, I compress that spring, get that retainer on and the pin in place. Success is mine! I finish assembling the rest of the gun in about 5 minutes. I test the loading gate and am satisfied with the results. Feels more like my Colt Frontiersman. I am good to go. So I went from feeling sorry for myself to feeling a whole lot better from my purchases and my good fortune of finding all the parts I launched into space. It was a good weekend. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crazy Gun Barney, SASS #2428 Posted February 17, 2020 Share Posted February 17, 2020 Sounds like a dang good weekend to me. One of these days I am going to lift something or look behind something and find all of the springs I have launched, seems like I never find them at the time. Brownells, Numrich and other sites just sit and wait for me to take something apart so they can sell me replacement springs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Henry T Harrison Posted February 17, 2020 Share Posted February 17, 2020 I learned the hard way to take a corrugated card board box sit it on it’s side with an old towel in the bottom and disassemble spring loaded guns in there. If you do launch a spring it’s usually contained or at least doesn’t go far Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Muleshoe Bill SASS #67022 Posted February 17, 2020 Share Posted February 17, 2020 A little trick.... when working on springs - have a large paper bag or box that you can work in or at least sim the soon to be launched spring at. about 80 % of the time said box or bag will capture your NASA probe to be. The rest of the time... wellllllllll Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Subdeacon Joe Posted February 17, 2020 Share Posted February 17, 2020 5 gallon clear plastic bags are your friend. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sedalia Dave Posted February 18, 2020 Share Posted February 18, 2020 Work under a bed sheet Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chili Pepper Kid, SASS #60463 Posted February 18, 2020 Share Posted February 18, 2020 Which Girl Scout cookies did ya get? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Three Foot Johnson Posted February 18, 2020 Share Posted February 18, 2020 A couple old kitchen forks work pretty well for compressing the coil main spring. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DocWard Posted February 18, 2020 Share Posted February 18, 2020 I picked up a Beretta 85 not long ago. Love it! Just need to pick up another magazine or three and swap out to some wooden grip panels. Glad your weekend ended up better. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Finagler 6853 Life Posted February 18, 2020 Author Share Posted February 18, 2020 12 hours ago, Chili Pepper Kid, SASS #60463 said: Which Girl Scout cookies did ya get? Peanut butter sandwich cookies. I'll get a couple boxes of mint thins from my grand daughter. My emergency stash when driving on long trips. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Finagler 6853 Life Posted February 18, 2020 Author Share Posted February 18, 2020 11 hours ago, DocWard said: I picked up a Beretta 85 not long ago. Love it! Just need to pick up another magazine or three and swap out to some wooden grip panels. Glad your weekend ended up better. I'm going to take another look at mine. Now that I think about it, I could have picked up an 84. What ever I have is the double stack. Someone before me put on a set of rubber Houge(?) grips and I want to change them back to original as the rubber makes it too big to get my little patty whackers around it comfortably. Want to swap? Let me double check the model first. I have an 82 that I got the checkered plastic grips for and thought the original wood smooth grips would fit the 85 (84?) but alas, there is just enough difference that it is a no go. I don't want to go cutting up the wood panels to make them fit and have something that looks like an amorphrodite. I'll check the model to be sure and get back to you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103 Posted February 18, 2020 Share Posted February 18, 2020 Please forgive the undignified howls in the distance, that's me laughing at having launched miscellaneous spring loaded parts into low Earth orbit! (Okay, so they were actually howls of anguish at the time!) My wife looked at me like I had a fish sticking out my shirt pocket when I painted the basement walls and floor white. I explained that bare concrete has just enough texture to render small parts of any kind, invisible. Paint it white and I can find those rascally interstellar probes! The advice on disassembling in a side-lying box, or a five gallon clear bag, bear merit, and as usual I benefit from someone else's post! My thanks to all! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DocWard Posted February 18, 2020 Share Posted February 18, 2020 3 hours ago, Finagler 6853 Life said: I'm going to take another look at mine. Now that I think about it, I could have picked up an 84. What ever I have is the double stack. Someone before me put on a set of rubber Houge(?) grips and I want to change them back to original as the rubber makes it too big to get my little patty whackers around it comfortably. Want to swap? Let me double check the model first. I have an 82 that I got the checkered plastic grips for and thought the original wood smooth grips would fit the 85 (84?) but alas, there is just enough difference that it is a no go. I don't want to go cutting up the wood panels to make them fit and have something that looks like an amorphrodite. I'll check the model to be sure and get back to you. Yes, you have the 84 if it is a double stack. Mine is a single stack. I'm not sure how much thicker the double stack is, to be honest. I will change to wooden Beretta grips eventually, just because I like wooden grips. I might try to upgrade the sights too. Either a fiber optic front sight or night sites so my eyes can pick them up more easily. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cypress Sun Posted February 18, 2020 Share Posted February 18, 2020 6 hours ago, Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103 said: Please forgive the undignified howls in the distance, that's me laughing at having launched miscellaneous spring loaded parts into low Earth orbit! (Okay, so they were actually howls of anguish at the time!) My wife looked at me like I had a fish sticking out my shirt pocket when I painted the basement walls and floor white. I explained that bare concrete has just enough texture to render small parts of any kind, invisible. Paint it white and I can find those rascally interstellar probes! The advice on disassembling in a side-lying box, or a five gallon clear bag, bear merit, and as usual I benefit from someone else's post! My thanks to all! Bare concrete, like the garage floor, does indeed make small parts invisible. While cleaning my '73, I slid the dust cover back too far...who hasn't. Of course, the spring and indent ball came flying out. I could here it hit the ceiling and then the floor. Found the spring right off the bat. Looked for the ball for about an hour, cussing up a storm. Finally, my gal came out and said "What's the matter with you"? I told her about the little ball and how I'd looked for it for the last hour. She looked down and picked something up and said "You mean this"? It was the ball. Hard to be happy and annoyed at the same time but I was. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chili Pepper Kid, SASS #60463 Posted February 19, 2020 Share Posted February 19, 2020 9 hours ago, Finagler 6853 Life said: Peanut butter sandwich cookies. I'll get a couple boxes of mint thins from my grand daughter. My emergency stash when driving on long trips. Those peanut butter sandwich cookies are my faves. Give me a box of those and a glass of milk. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DocWard Posted February 19, 2020 Share Posted February 19, 2020 3 hours ago, Cypress Sun said: Bare concrete, like the garage floor, does indeed make small parts invisible. While cleaning my '73, I slid the dust cover back too far...who hasn't. Of course, the spring and indent ball came flying out. I could here it hit the ceiling and then the floor. Found the spring right off the bat. Looked for the ball for about an hour, cussing up a storm. Finally, my gal came out and said "What's the matter with you"? I told her about the little ball and how I'd looked for it for the last hour. She looked down and picked something up and said "You mean this"? It was the ball. Hard to be happy and annoyed at the same time but I was. Building scale models and having dropped more than one small part and having difficulty finding it, I've found that laying a flashlight on its side on the floor and looking for the small part's shadow often works. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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