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The original was posted on /r/tifu by /u/About7fish on 2023-08-11 11:04:59.
I've been getting more into firearms lately as a hobby and as a means of home defense. When I saw a relatively inexpensive Remington 870 Special Purpose I jumped at the opportunity. I'd read it was great with a few upgrades, one of which is a magazine extension to address its weakness of low capacity. So I order the parts, field strip my weapon, and here we are at point of fuck up.
For those of you unfamiliar with the workings of this weapon, there's another barrel beneath the top one with a cap on the end. Remove this cap and you have a spring cap, a spring, and a follower which work to feed shells in each time a round is racked via tension. My objective was to remove each of these and replace them with custom parts which when all told should add two shells to the overall capacity. The problem came with removing the spring. The owner's manual instructs owners to push the spring down, turn 90 degrees, and then slowly pull up. I'd gotten as far as the pushing the spring down and turning, but the spring just wouldn't budge after that. I had no idea how I'd pry that thing up and out. Then an idea which I can only describe as stupidity in genius clothing hit me: if I couldn't pull it out, why not go to the other end and push? And that couldn't be easier; having the spring pushed from that direction is exactly what this thing is designed for! Simple, intuitive, and quick. I like all three of those. I have some snap caps I use to practice dry firing without damaging the firing pin, I'll just load the magazine with them and push the spring that way.
Any of you who have any passing knowledge of physics or have been the victim of poorly manufactured or maliciously used rubber bands know where this one is going. All this time I thought my magazine held 4 shells. Nope. It's held 5 all along but it turns out the magazine spring has been stuck in the barrel. I got it stuck down further. And I just unstuck the shit out of it. Appropriately enough, like a bullet out of a gun, there goes the spring cap, spring, and follower. I'm sitting there stunned for a moment, as if sitting here long enough and refusing to view my surroundings would mean I could deny that anything had just happened. Then reality gives me gentle redirection and I make an assessment of the area immediately in front of me. There's a greasy black mark on my ceiling where the spring ricocheted off of the door and a follower that somehow landed right at my feet. I thought that was just the funniest thing, in a breaking the tension kind of way (forgive the inadvertent play on words). Then I turn around to get back to the video I was using as a guide to install this magazine extension.
There I find the spring cap and a chip in my monitor, nearly front and center. For a moment I was fuming - I've been working all kinds of overtime lately to make some upgrades in my life and now I have to put down even more money. I've only owned the damn thing for a month, I'd finally upgraded after 8 years! I've just busted my ass for free. But as I ranted like a lunatic to my better half about this latest in a long line of financial setbacks for us, she pointed out where exactly that chip in my monitor is: directly in front of my left eye. Remember that scene from Spongebob where he's playing cello for Squidward and shoots the bow through a painting of Squidward's face? That's pretty much where I am right now. I don't know how in the hell I wasn't nailed in any of the places on my head I'd prefer not be traumatically pierced, or on my way to the ED to spend considerably more than that monitor costs trying to rebuild and maintain a human face. But you'd best believe I mellowed out when perspective hit me like those components really should have. So here I am sharing this perspective in the hopes that my low today can make somebody else's high all the higher. That and to get well deserved criticism from people who actually know what the hell they're doing.
TL;DR was doing some amateur gunsmithing, forgot Newton's third, and bought a 400 dollar life lesson.