Master of Slide-Fu

This week was a long -- very long -- brutal work week. For the most part it was business as usual, but the slides continued to be a burr on everyone's backside. Yes, the same slides that I busted my finger open trying to hammer into shape so that they would work correctly. Much hammering was again done this week. Sometimes it works; sometimes not. You kind of have to get a feel for what that particular slide and that particular barrel action requires. There are a few pressure points -- three main ones -- that can be whacked to loosen things up. Most of the time I can get them to work. I call this Slide-Fu.

I actually think my Slide-Fu is superior to most, probably except for Barney's, but he's out for 8 to 9 weeks after a double knee operation. Even Brad, who is really really good, can't always get them to work. And a couple of times today (five to be exact), the guns he gave me that he slide-fit ended up screwing me when I over-reamed the chamber thinking that the bolt was jamming things up when it was really the slide that was stuck on the gas pipe. Luckily, we had some oversized bolts.

Those slides were really hacking me off. Bolt-fit is hard enough, and really slide-fit is hard enough as it is, too, without fucked up slides clogging the works. Having to smash on slides cuts down the number of guns I can get through an hour, and with Cooter as the other bolt-fitter (although WHY he's on that job I'll NEVER know), most of the pressure is on me. It's lucky for them that I'm the kind of guy who accepts the pressure and tries to get a lot done, even if it does make me grumbly.

But the slide snafu makes me even grumblier. Oh, I was swearing and cursing up a storm, brother. It was a profanity hurricane. And that was echoed down at final build by Fred, because sometimes even though the slides work for us, they jam up in the stocks down there and he has to hammer them more and so forth. It's a pain in the ass.

Believe me, the awareness of all ten of my fingers has increased a hundredfold after last week's destruction of my finger, and it has to be because with many of those slides I'm taking a full swing down with that rubber mallet right onto it. And I do *not* want to catch my finger in there again. The finger that did get hurt, while still a bit sore, is mostly all healed up now. I'd like to keep it that way.

And there are some that just won't work no matter what you do. I was so pissed at one slide that was jamming up my bolt-fitting that when I ripped it back off the barrel action it bounced off my bench and onto the floor, at which point I kicked it halfway across the cell. The other guys think I'm pretty funny when I'm mad ... and I guess I am. I dunno.

So in the end we didn't make our numbers today. There were just too many problems.

Only five more hours tomorrow morning and it's weekend time. Woo fucking hoo.