Random Cool Tricks

Now that's a cool trick . I've watched a bunch of them tree fellers videos , and some of them guys can do some mighty impressive things .

 

When I was a sailing instructor the final lesson was righting a capsized sailboat.
It wasn't quite this much fun.

This is more random dirty tricks.

 

This is a tough one to demonstrate, but has been one of my biggest "why didn't I think of that" moments in years. Plastic push pins that are tight will flex and pull through the tool.

Just a little thumb pressure to flatten the plastic onto the tool usually makes all the difference and I'm finding this trick has given new life to tools that I thought were useless.

 

Too much of what? Nitroglycerin?

 

You only have to tear one $400 leather wrapped steering wheel to appreciate the simplicity of this trick.
Old steering wheel cover is split and fits almost all new steering wheels. I can drag sharp plastic and steel dash pieces over it without leaving a mark on the steering wheel underneath.

 

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^^^^^^That was badass!^^^^^^^^

 

Not so much a trick, and certainly no surprise to me, but I've found a most enjoyable way to dispose of 1000 rounds of rusty 7.62x39 ammo that I was given. It had been stored in a leaky garage by the previous owner and had been found by his heirs, who asked me to dispose of it.

Chrome lined bore and chamber gave me no worries shooting this stuff, and it was all actually quite accurate for factory steel case ammo. I was able to do mock hostage rescue drills at 50 yards, shattering one business card size piece or clay pigeon while leaving one next to it intact. It was also quite effective at launching every stick on the 25 and 50 yards impact areas into low orbit.

What's left looks like it'll be almost serviceable with a little steel wool cleaning.

I did note a few rounds that had delayed ignition, which were excellent training aids for trigger control. The seven rounds that wouldn't fire at all were good practice for extracting stuck rounds from the chamber. The pogo stick method worked 100% of the time for that.

You just can't beat free ammo, even if it isn't quite like new. The plan now is to run it all through the vibratory case cleaner with clean new media that I intend only for lantern parts and loaded ammo cleaning. (abandoned it and went to a wet media tumbler years ago after I noticed the amount of toxic dust it produced when tumbling cases.)

 

Candle timer. Could've prevented at one house fire I know of.

 

Re; Hotdiggity's post #314. Running loaded ammo in a tumbler is dangerous. powder breaks up and affects burn rate, can break up primer pellets. Best bet (although slower and more tedious) steel wool on steel cases.

 

A guy could spend hours reading the differences of opinion for and against tumbling live ammunition. This thread from the High Road has been around since 2005, and has plenty of examples or extended 15+ hours tumbling or various ammo with no ill effects.

https://www.thehighroad.org/index.php?threads/is-it-ok-to-polish-live-ammo-in-a-tumbler.156750/

I never gave this any thought, since tumbling of live ammo is the last step in the production process at the commercial reloader I was supplying. This was done to remove all the case lube from the loaded ammunition, and to give it a final polish before packaging. Never any issues.

Sounds like I may have to do a test on this ammo.


It's a tiny flake powder, and very nearly full to case capacity, so there's not a lot room for powder to be shaking around in the case.

I could sort out a couple hundred pieces and tumble them for 12 hours or so, with and without media, just to see how they stand up. I doubt it'd take more than an hour to knock the rust off. Too long would possibly remove the rest of the varnish and potentially the copper plating from the steel jacketed bullets.. I only had one of the rustiest pieces of the worst 100 that wouldn't chamber on the first try. I could pull down a round and do a before and after on the powder and maybe even run some across a chronograph if I can find one that's in use at work. Any manufacturer of military ammunition that can't take hours and hours of vibration, on and off over decades, along with surviving extremes of temperature and humidity would be out of business in a hurry.

 

Lighting an alcohol preheat cup with a match is a challenge. The easy fix is to run a braided copper wick from the preheat cup to the side of the burner frame. Fill the cup with denatured alcohol and then dribble a little onto the wick. Even a paper match can light the preheat cup now.