By Tank Hoover

Whoever invented the coiled, tempered spring should be shot! Not really, but at times, the thought has crossed my mind. When compressed and contained, these spiral shaped wires of motion provide us with free energy for moving parts, but at a price! They can also be the cause for much frustration, and/or injury! Packaged in clear plastic bags, they look innocent enough. Try compressing one while cramming it in place of a gun, and their temperament takes on a whole new dimension. They’re possessed to infuriate us, and they enjoy doing it! Springs already in place are just as fiendish!

I learned this the hard way as a youngster of about four. I had a plastic yellow dart gun I loved to shoot. Curiosity getting the better of me, I pondered how it could propel my rubber-headed, suction-cupped projectiles that so coolly stuck to paned windows.

I needed to understand how it worked, to satisfy my curiosity, and to keep my dart gun running smoothly. No sense having a malfunction while protecting myself. I got my gunsmithing tool out, which consisted of the straightest stick I could find in my backyard, and shoved it down the barrel to “cock” the spring, and removed the stick. I couldn’t use a dart, as it would lock in place when loaded. Now these were the days before bore scopes, so I had to make do with what I had at hand, and simply peered down the barrel.

There it was, an ominous, compressed spring, ready to unleash its fury. A simple plastic hook was the only thing containing the power of the constricted spring. The hook (sear) was a simple lever pivoting on the trigger pin, attached to the trigger itself. It was a marvelous example of a simple one-piece part, of plastic injection molding technology. As I tickled the trigger, I could see the spring hook (sear) move. Peering down the bore of a cocked dart gun wasn’t the brightest idea of my meddlesome mind, but it did give me a dart-eye’s view of how the darn thing worked.

Zing …

Trying to figure out how to do a plastic trigger job, I wiggled the trigger too much, releasing the sear, unleashing the rage of the tempered steel spring. Now I had a searing pain in my eye! All I saw was orange stars. I staggered back into the house and told my mom I just shot my eye out. As I sat in the backseat, I surmised the coiled death spring must have had a case of barrel run out, and tagged my bore scope (my eyeball). With the car on autopilot, mom took me on another familiar trip to the ER. I had to wear a white eye-patch for about a week. I was disappointed I didn’t get a cool black one instead.

I acknowledge springs have their place, but sometimes I wonder if engineers display their sadistic side when they design the working innards and parts of firearms. While battling bouts of “engineer design-block” to make a system work, these sadistic psychos take glee in designing spring-loaded booby-traps with parts just small enough to function, but impossible for man sized fingers to pick up, or even see usually. I can imagine them chuckling maniacally in the lab, as their supervisor asks them, “Figure it out, yet?” As the menacing, white-coated mechanic thinks to himself, “No, but I just designed the ultimate parts launcher, and it only takes a quarter turn of this innocent looking screw for all the parts to go KABLOOEY!

You know those “exploded diagram” pictures of disassembled guns you see? That’s really the designed aftermath when unknowing hands trip the hidden trip wire while tinkering with their gun.

The evil engineers know when massive amounts of parts go flying your confidence is shot, a far cry from when we wanted to take this baby apart, and see how she runs. These projects usually turn into the dreaded “brown paper bag project.” I’m talking about the whipped puppy dog “march of shame” to the local gun shop, where you unceremoniously turn over your gun, and hopefully all the parts, in a brown paper bag and explain that your damn brother-in-law said he knew what he was doing. As the gunsmith checks-in your sack of a partially autopsied gun, with accompanying guts, he slyly notices the small cut under your eye and knowingly nods to you, commiserating along with you.

But he knows.

Dabbler’s Allowed

So boys, listen up! If you like to dabble with your guns to unwind and relieve a little tension, watch out for those tortile, tempered-tantrum tidbits known as springs. These jumpy jackals like to leap with the velocity of a magnum-load and have a ”guided missile” penchant for striking eyeballs.

Funny how gunsmiths have a proclivity for containing these wily wound-up wires! For you DIY guys, get yourself some J. B. Wood books on gunsmithing to help tame and corral these coiled contraptions. And remember, if one does get away from you, eye patches are cool, especially in black!

Oh, and if you want to read a “real” story about a bag-o-gun, check out this one by “His Editorship” Mr. Huntington himself. It all started when ….

https://americanhandgunner.com/from-the-bench-a-bag-o-gun/

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