I wanted to let you all know that the Hawken is back. I worked on it until mid-January, but no amount of PB Blaster, freezing, and other voodoo seemed to work. I sent it off to a gunsmith in January with the admonition that it be done by April 1. The gunsmith laughed and said the Hawken was a no-brainer. He'd pull the breech plug and call me in a week or two. The ensuing chaos is worth describing.
1) I called the gunsmith in late March. He said he hadn't had a chance to look at it.
2) In a subsequent call the gunsmith said he'd ordered a ball puller, because something was in the barrel. I explained that there was a cleaning jag in the barrel. Oh.
3) At the same time as I'd dropped off the Hawken, I had left him a Rem 870 that had some problems loading a second shell. That took three trips to correct. In one return trip, parts were removed from another customer's 870 and used to correct a problem while I watched.
4) I finally got back the Hawken. It was missing the wedge. The cleaning rod showed signs of excessive heating, and there was a scratch in the stock. A new wedge was machined. The scratch is still there. I'm going to order a new rod.
5) I never did get back the gun cases that I left with the guy. He gave me two other that weren't mine. They were nicer than mine, but exceedingly dirty.
6) The magazine of the 870 was wearing someone else's cap-- minus the sling stud. The smith installed a new stud at no charge.
. . . and then I found out the 'smith had been arrested for selling firearms to known felons. I'm just skimming the surface here. I'm still in negotiations for the movie rights to my story. I haven't had time to deal with the Hawken, but the 870 made it through turkey season with incident.
Last edited by shaman; 07/01/13.
