Flirting With Disaster

Here's an interesting little story. I went shooting this past weekend. I've got a fairly good gun, a Smith & Wesson 40ve. It's fairly well made, and I haven't had any major problems with it. I only put 50 rounds through it this time, but I wanted to take it apart and clean it. I get home and try breaking it down. For some strange reason it wasn't coming. For a while I couldn't figure out what was wrong with it, until I noticed that the bore spring was fully extended. I thought that was a little odd, but I'm able to get the spring out and the gun comes apart with ease.

That's when I noticed something was horribly wrong. The bore slider, that holds the spring compressed and keeps the two halves of the gun lined up, wasn't there. I think maybe it fell out when I was taking it apart and I just didn't notice. No, it wasn't there at all. It wasn't in my apartment, it wasn't in my car. At some point while we were shooting, it must have ejected out the front of my gun!

In case you don't understand, this is extremely bad. Any number of things could have gone horribly wrong. It really did scare the crap out of me, it could have blown up in my hand. I just couldn't believe it. Suffice it to say, on that day I was one lucky guy.

I of course won't be shooting it till I get that piece replaced. Not just because it's a very necessary piece, but I can't even get the gun back together with out that one piece. Holy crap that was nuts!