Took the .45 out for a spin the other day and all seemed well - plenty of ammo, a clear day and it was simply good to be out in the fields. So I loaded up, got into position and fired - excellent, an enormous great hole in my enemy, which happened to be some sort of green plastic bucket. "Well done, LSP", I thought, seeing as how the round had ended up where I'd intended. But then I noticed a curious thing; the slide had locked open.
Well, so what? So a lot because the slide shouldn't do that until the last round and your mag's empty, or you've deliberately locked it open. Puzzled, I released the slide, re-cocked the weapon and fired - good shot, the bucket was taking a pounding, but the slide returned to its new found bad behaviour, which meant that my pistol had somehow turned itself into a one shot, re-cock nightmare.
I did the sensible thing; made safe, retired to the tailgate and field stripped the gun, which apart from a surfeit of oil seemed fine. Then it struck me - too much oil... from an overenthusiastic cleaning... when the slide release/lock lever had somehow popped out of the frame...
Sure enough, the lever in question wasn't right, it lacked tension, or more specifically a tiny spring, which must have exited the gun along with the lever and not been put back.
Mystery of the malfunctioning .45 solved I drove home, thinking how likely it would be to find the miscreant spring. I wasn't sanguine, the thing was small and who knows where it had thrown itself. Springs are like that, you see, and this one had everything to do with the proper functioning of the firearm. I wasn't happy.
Back at the parsonage I went upstairs, stood in the doorway of the room where I'd cleaned the pistol and took stock. "Stay calm, LSP, concentrate." I did, walked slowly over to the gun table, looked down at the floor, and there it was, staring up at me - the spring. Disaster averted, I put it back in its rightful place, snug under its lever.
Now, some would attribute this to Divine intervention, lost springs being notoriously hard to find. Others might say that if that's all that counts as a crisis in LSPland I should count myself lucky; others again might suspect that I'm holding off from posting on the melting glacier that is the failed modern liberal humanist secular project. Whatever, the pistol works now and I'm happy with that.
Off in search of rabbits tomorrow.
Shoot straight,
LSP
