A blonde walks into an auto-part store and says "My Datsun B210 needs a new part. I don't know what it is, but it's broken, and I have the part number. Can you help me?"
The clerk at the counter says "Sure. What's the part number?"
The blonde says: "It's a Seven-Ten."
The counter-man digs out a dusty Datsun B210 parts manual and leaves through it for a while. He can't find a Seven-Ten part number. Calls in "The Old Guy" (the guy who has worked for the store so long, he knows parts numbers by heart.) He doesn't know what she's talking about.
Finally, they say "Go back to your car and write down the part number."
She does, and comes back with a slip of paper which shows:
710
The old guy looks at it, turns the paper upside down, nods, the goes back into the parts bins. Two minutes later he brings back an oil-filler tube cap. On the top of the cap is stamped:
OIL
(Pause for laughter.)
Okay, finished? Here's the real story:
Two weeks ago I attended an IPSC Steel match in Bend, Oregon. I had some problems with ammunition feeding, which I attributed to ammunition. Just to make sure, I field-stripped the STI and wiped it down, then applied a liberal coat of Sewing Machine oil. It's a light-weight oil I use during the winter, and although it was somewhat warmer than the use I had intended it for it was all the oil I had with me. The next stage was 'sort-of' okay, but the following stage was disastrous.
I had recently changed from FMJ to JHP bullets, and I figured I had seated the bullets too shallow.
Today I went to another local club match, with a brand new batch of ammunition in which I had
taken special care with reloading. The first stage was bad ... lots of failure-to-feed problems. Actually, the slide just wasn't going into battery on a consistent basis.
People asked me what was wrong. I said the ammunition just 'wasn't right'.
As it happened, my friend Bill Sahlberg was at the match, and he offered to loan me his ammunition. Sure, it was 'practice ammo', but it worked fine in his pistol.
That stage was much the same thing. Bang-Bang Bang-Dammit!
For the next stage, Big Dawg offered to let me use HIS ammunition.
Even worse, I ended up shooting a 120-point stage 'single-action'. The gun just wasn't running with ANYBODY's ammo!
So I took the pistol to the safety area, and field-stripped it. Wiped it down, used a generous amount of sewing-machine oil as a solvent, wiped it down again. Then I poured enough sewing-machine oil on the slide and rails to drown Free Willie, put it back together again, wiped the outside with a shop towel and put it in the gun rug to soak.
The next stage I was SMOKING! The gun ran Perfectly, and I ended up 3rd overall on a technically difficult stage.
The following stage, I started getting some jams toward the end of the 24-round stage.
Hmmm ... what am I doing wrong? Big Dawg's ammo ran crummy, two stages back. I cleaned and oiled the gun and it ran great. An hour later, it won't cycle ... again.
So I went back to the safety area with my gun and rags and tool kit and sewing machine oil, and field-stripped the gun AGAIN.
As I started to pour more sewing-machine oil on the slide, I took a reflective moment to actually read the instructions on the four-ounce bottle.
Unique Tek.como
Premium
Weapons
Cleaner
- Can be used safely indoors
- Contains no oil or additives
- Will not swell plastic
- Non Flamable
- Non-Toxic
- Low Volatility
- No Ammonia
- Non Acidic
- Non Corrosive
What I had been doing was 'lubricating' the slide and rails not with "Sewing Machine Oil", but with a cleaner.
The stuff cleaned all the crap from the slide/rail interface, but it decidedly did NOT lubricate it! I had been running the gun 'dry' for two weeks, and wondered why the slide was going 'Ker-CHUNK' all the time.
Sheepishly, I went back to my bag and dug into another pocket. Came out with a 1-ounce applicator-bottle of real sewing machine oil, oiled the slide and the rails (and used a 'snake' on the bore), wiped the gun dry on the outside, then went to the final stage where I ended up 9th out of 62 competitors with a 6.07 HF on CM 99-xxxx "Fast 'N Furious'. The gun ran perfectly.
Why wouldn't it? It was clean, OILed, and running on Some Other Dude's Ammo (S.O.D.A.).
The moral of this story (besides "just when you assumed you had done every stupid thing possible in IPSC ... you'll find a new way to be Stupid!"), is that you we I need to check your our my presumptions at the door in IPSC competition.
Dave Skinner once told me: "Oil is Good! We're working with machinery here, and you can't put too much oil on machinery -- the excess will run off."
I apologise, Dave. You told me, I thought I had listened, but I forgot the Stupid Factor.
---
On the drive home, SWMBO and I talked about the match. She didn't shoot today; instead, she ran the camera. We talked about the interesting things we had seen, and I mentioned it was a shame that she missed the shot of Bill Sahlberg doing the "Rodeo Princess" wave as he slid in the deep gravel on Stage 5, trying to change direction faster than the pea-gravel would permit. It WOULD have been my headline news for the day. Without that footage, I would have to go with the "Seven-Ten" story.
"Well, it won't be the first time you've embarassed yourself in public!"
"Okay" I said; "The 'Naked Loops Dream'" story is the headline for today!"
It's good to own your blog.
Maybe SWMBO will be speaking to me again by this time next week.
PS: At least I got to shoot the whole last half of the match shooting Some Other Dude's Ammo!
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