Crikett .22 youth rifle adventure

[Finagler 6853 Life]

This story starts about 9 or 10 years ago.  I was at the LGS and they were having a sale.  Oooooo, I'm going to save money!  One of the rifles they had on sale were the Crikett. 22 youth model from Keystone Arms.   My daughter had graced me with a grandson a couple years prior so I figured I could use this to go shooting with him.  It is the cutest little bugger you have ever seen.  So a 2 year old kid isn't into shooting, yet but I have a niece who has an 8 year old and a 6 year old set of boys, whose dad is a nice guy, likes to hunt and fish, so I could tell he is going to want to teach his boys to shoot.  Being the good hearted guy that I am, well used to be, I offer to loan this to him to teach his boys how to shoot because, well, they are small and this seemed to me to be a perfect match.  He didn't have a lot of money and only adult sized firearms.  Everything I had known about him would not indicate the handling that would go on from there.

Fast forward 9 or 10 years, this little rifle has been at my nephew's (by marriage) house being used off and on by his two sons.  I reminded him a few years ago that we needed to meet up and get it back to me as my grandson is now at the age and size where he could be using it.  Last year he even set up a date to hand it off to me but some schedule issue came up and we did not connect.  Now it isn't like they live hours away.  The live 5 miles from me and we see them several times a year at different family events.  This year I have come to the end of my tolerance (I'm getting old and grumpy. Forty Rod is becoming my hero) so I tell my wife I'm going over to pick it up.  I call ahead, yup going to be home, do a gift drop off from my wife to her niece, said niece gives me a gift for said wife, hands me the rifle, says thanks for the loan, her husband (nephew by marriage) sticks his head out the door to say thanks and goes on about his business.  I load up my stuff and head home.

No I immediately see on the receiver, under the rear sight, a fair amount of rust.  Mind you, this rifle was brand new when I "loaned" it to him.  There were some indications of surface rust on the barrel so I made a mental note that I better tear this down later and clean it.   This is where it all goes south and serious lessons learned.   Won't do that no more!

So that evening I go to the man cave, clear out a space on my bench, take the stock off, bolt out, rear peep sight, trigger assembly so that I have it stripped down to the receiver and barrel.  I take my .22 rod with a patch and some No, 9 and attempt to run it down the barrel.  I can't even get it in the barrel.  The he!!  Hold it up to a light.  Nothing blocking the barrel.  Try the rod from the breach.  Goes in maybe 2 inches.  I start digging around in my cleaning kit and find a .22 brush.  That won't go in.  I dig further in my kit and find a .17 caliber brush.  I can't get that in the barrel either.  I have come to conclusion that my nephew (through marriage) has not cleaned this rifle in the entire time his boys have been practicing with it.  The barrel is dramatically fouled up so bad I am concerned that this could ever be resurrected.  Now if this was me, teaching my boys how to shoot, part of the lesson would have been the proper care and maintenance of a firearm so that when they have their own, they will  know how to take care of it.  I also developed a belief that if you borrow something from someone, you return it in as good a shape as you got it if not better.

Anger and frustration are now wrestling with each other egged on by dogged determination to overcome this obstacle.  I get the ..2 brush back out and my hand drill.  I'm going to get this cleaned out come, well you  know.   That cleaned out the first 2 inches of the barrel.  Alright, let's put the brush on a cleaning rod, chuck that in the drill and see if we can work it in better.  I am good.  I worked it in so well, I couldn't get it out of the breach end.  Ok, let's put a brass rod in the other end and see if we can tap it out with a small hammer.  That didn't work at all.  Anger and frustration are having an all out brawl right now and they have a cursing cheering section.  I need a Vise-grips.  All that did was crush the cleaning rod and snap it off.  Determination took over believing the rod could be driven out with a BFH.  Well it worked, kinda.  All it did was drive the rod in the barrel until it was flush with the breach end of the barrel.  It was not going any further.  You know that sound you get when you strike something with a hammer and get that solid reporting sound that you have driven it home?  Yeah, that rod was in solid.  It wasn't going any farther.  I was defeated.

Chemicals!  Life is better through chemistry!  That's how they advertise it.  I'm now thinking, what do I need to use to dissolve the aluminum cleaning rod.  Google it, there are lots of fun ways to do it.  Household lye, sodium hydroxide, hydrochloric acid, sulfuric acid, along with other composites I can't pronounce.  I start to tell my wife (what a good woman.  She has saved my a number of times) about my devious plan of attack.  Now the Google information does state that these substances will also pit and eat at other metals as well.  I can't very well eat the aluminum without doing serious damage to the barrel as well.  My dear wife tells me the same thing (she is smart) and that I better not be thinking seriously about trying that.  Defeated again.

I take the path of last resort.  I email Keystone Arms and tell them my tale of woe and stupidity.  Have mercy on my and sell me a replacement barrel, please.  A really nice man, Steve Dirk, an assembly supervisor and repair technician, replied to me that if I send the barrel and action to him, he will replace the barrel under warranty.  REALLY?!  Under warranty?  I couldn't get that little sucker reassembled and packaged fast enough to ship it off via Fed Ex.  I'm not going to have an extra jack handle after all!  Hallelujah!  I was just giddy.

So some important lessons here boys and girls.  Don't loan firearms to someone, even if you think you trust them and let them have them for extended periods of time.  Don't loan them out at all.  We discussed this in the Saloon numbers of times.  If something will not fit down a barrel, a cleaning rod for example, a BFH is not the answer.  The obstruction must be removed by other means and methods.   An aluminum rod is much harder than a lead bullet and can not be driven out once you have it fully pressed into the barrel. 

For their superior customer service, I soon will be purchasing another Keystone Arms Crikett model youth rifle.  I would highly recommend them to you.

I'm guessing that Keystone Arms has a wall of fame of stupid home gunsmith tricks with a whole array of things people do on display.  I think this one deserves an award.

 

Fred(who's holding my beer)Finagler

[Cheyenne Ranger, 48747L]

 

when someone has no $$ stake in an item it very often doesn't mean a whole lot to them

 

I also learned this the hard way.

 

glad you found a solution

 

[Forty Rod SASS 3935]

I had  a "friend" who also claimed to be a "gunsmith"  I gave him my brand new Uberti 1873 rifle (that my wife had given me for Christmas 1982) so he could mount a tang sight on it.

 

Fourteen months later I got it back with a sight that canted to the left about five degrees, two holes in the tang that weren't in the right place that had blind screws filling them up, and the forend was scratched and the nose cap dinged up.

 

Had tried to get it back several times and finally had him served with papers that got the gun back.  He called me a dozen or so times and called me everything in the book, then came by the house.  My across-the-street neighbor was a local cop and he arrested the guy and charged him with resisting arrest, disturbing the peace, making threats, criminal trespass, and a few other things.

 

I signed off on everything, got the price of the rifle back, and a restraining order (hunting license if he violated it  ) and then never heard from nor saw him ever again.

 

That was in 1983 and 1984

[Pat Riot]

Learned that lesson as well but no damage to the gun. Years ago I loaned my new Stoeger Coachgun to a so-called “friend” at work because he “needed something to protect his family with until he can afford to buy something”. He and his wife had little children and there was some nastiness on the horizon that I cannot remember now. My wife suggested I loan him a shotgun in front of him and his wife.  So I did. ( That will never happen again - she now knows better)
 

Anyway, a couple months go by and he “still can’t afford a gun”. So a few more go by and I get nothing but excuses and BS, but this moron can afford can afford to go to every Amway brainwashing session he can on the West Coast. Long story short, I showed up at his house one morning and not so nicely informed him that I was there for my shotgun and no excuses would do and I inferred serious bodily harm as well as police and ambulance activity. 
I got my shotgun back exactly as I had given it to him. 

I will not even loan my best friend a gun. He would never ask anyway. One of the reasons he’s my friend. 

[Red Gauntlet , SASS 60619]

Those Keystone youth .22s are neat little rifles.

 

Long-term loan like that can be problematical. He should have presented you with a new rifle, having neglected yours. They are very reasonably priced. 

 

Great report on the cleaning job, though! I know the feeling....

[Eyesa Horg]

Great story Finagler. Those little Crickets are adorable, had to buy one for MY niece! Your story reminds me of loaning my TC in-line to my boss years ago so he could go deer hunting in Pennsylvania. I gave him everything he needed right down to a cleaning rod, patches, & #13. Told him how to clean it afterwards and also typed it up for him and put all the tools he would need in with the rifle. He didn't even have to buy bullets or pellets! Three months after his return and successfully harvesting an 10 pointer in Pa. he finally returns the gun. (no he didn't bring me any venison)! Well---you guessed it, he never cleaned it and I bet you all know what Pyrodex does to a gun---even a stainless gun! (in case you don't, it's like a '75 Chevy pick-up, you can hear it rust on a quiet night) It took quite some time and solvents to get the bolt out and disassemble. Everything is pitted to this day obviously, but the accuracy is still 1.5 inches at hundred yards. Never ceases to amaze me how lame some people can be with other peoples stuff.

[J-BAR #18287]

“Neither a borrower nor a lender be...”

 

Shakespeare got it right.

 

 

[Matthew Duncan]

Funagler,

 

You made the same mistake that I have made.  I assumed that others had be raised the same way my dad had raised me.

[Red Gauntlet , SASS 60619]

3 hours ago, J-BAR #18287 said:

“Neither a borrower nor a lender be...”

 

 

 ".... For loan oft loses both itself and friend.” 

 

Exactly describes the situation.

[Hardpan Curmudgeon SASS #8967]

Loaned a couple my son's Chipmunk, to teach their youngster basic shooting skills.  At the same time, we gave them an H&R Topper .410, but made it clear that the .22 was a loan.

 

The couple split up and moved away - one to Northern California, the other to Texas.

 

No mo' Chipmunk.  

 

Cutest darned thing; I thought of it as a "Baby Model 70."  

 

 

 

 

[LawMan Mark, SASS #57095L]

Had a Savage Axis brought to me a couple of months ago.  The gent had a round he decided to eject from the chamber come out without the bullet (loaded long enough that it engaged the lands and grooves in the barrel).  So this nimrod leans over and cuts a branch off of a tree and drives it through the barrel, where it lodges and won't come out.  A couple of taps of the butt on a hard surface disengages the bullet from the barrel, but the stick is still in there.  

 

I had to do something I never expected to do to clear a barrel.  I took a 24" long 1/4" drill bit and drilled the stick out.  A thorough cleaning with a wire brush, Kroil, Hoppes and a dozen cloth patches, and it got returned to him.  He's advised the accuracy of the rifle is still ok since then.  

[DeaconKC]

There is an old saying "If you loan a friend $20 and never see him again, it was worth it."

[Alpo]

Little guns.

 

Back in 82 I think, I was in a pawn shop, and I saw a Chipmunk. They were brand new at the time, and cute as hell. I think it was about a hundred and a quarter, and I was fairly flush, so that left with me. took it out in the woods and discovered that it was too damn little. Sure was cute though.

 

A week or so later I'm going over to my brother's house, and I took it along. And we all go shooting. His wife, who is about four foot three, had a great time with it. It fit her real good. We get back to the house and she's gone to the bathroom or something, and I asked about her birthday, since I seem to recall that it was about the right time of year. He said it had been three days before. There was a pack of post-it notes sitting on the coffee table, so I wrote Happy Birthday on one and stuck it on the stock.

 

Then in 85 I decided my daughter was old enough for a gun, and went looking for another Chipmunk. They were nowhere to be found. The store did, however, have a Anshutz Woodchucker. I believe they only made them one year. The story I got was that a complete run of one of their full size bolt action 22 repeaters had something wrong with the muzzle. Instead of scrapping the whole lot, they cut six or eight inches off (they were either 22 or 24-inch barrels, I disremember), bringing the length down to 16 and a half inches, and getting rid of whatever was wrong with the muzzle. Then they took about two and a half inches off the back end, and marketed it as a child's rifle.

 

Then one Lobita was what I thought was old enough for a gun (whether her parents thought so or not I didn't inquire) I got her a Crickett, because neither a Chipmunk nor a Woodchucker was available.

[Smokin Gator SASS #29736]

Sounds like crickett has great customer service. Does anyone have experience with other similar small 22s like these?Just curious about what's out there. I've seen others but never paid much attention to them or checked them out.

[Hardpan Curmudgeon SASS #8967]

For what it's worth, back in '07, Keystone - the outfit that builds the Crickett rifles - bought the company that made Chipmunks in Lewiston, Idaho, and moved the operation to Milton, Pennsylvania. 

 

They still build Chipmunks as well as Cricketts.  Even left-handed models!  

 

Chipmunk          Crickett

 

 

[Three Foot Johnson]

1 hour ago, Alpo said:

Little guns.

 

Back in 82 I think, I was in a pawn shop, and I saw a Chipmunk. They were brand new at the time, and cute as hell. I think it was about a hundred and a quarter, and I was fairly flush, so that left with me. took it out in the woods and discovered that it was too damn little.

I bought my stepson one 'bout 25 years ago, and when his mom and I split up, it was one of the few things of any value she didn't sell, give away, or take when she left. I modified a pegboard shelf bracket and a piece I'd cut off a shotgun butt and made it workable for me. There's a thick piece of felt between the plastic butt plate and the metal plate of the extension so the ribbing on the butt plate doesn't get dinged up. 

[Alpo]

One of the advantages of a Crickett is that they sell full-size stocks to fit it. So when your 7-year-old is now 17, you can replace the wood and his first rifle can still be enjoyed.

[Crazy Gun Barney, SASS #2428]

I picked up this years ago when Sportsmart was getting out of selling guns.  I showed up at 4am to get in line for the massive sale and found the line already wrapped around the building.  They were supposed to have bolt rifles for $200 (Win and Rem). pump shotguns for $100 etc.  They wanted everything gone in a day.  By the time I got in there, all that was left was this Daisy 22 bolt action for $25.  Well I had been standing in line for 8 hours or so and I wasn't going to walk away empty handed.  It doesn't have a magazine, it is single shot only.  The stock is all plastic and looks like a pellet gun.  There is an extendable butt on it.  Many kids have fired this rifle as their first time to the range.  Kinda fun for me to plink with too!