How not to .....................

[Peter Laidler]

I'll tell you what is even BETTER fun..................... We had to breech up and un breech with a slave bolt and bolt head in the action for reasons best known to the instructors, in and out inspectors and so on. So during a particularly tiresone day when I'd had my gut full of Armouring, I slipped in the bolt and started to unbreech what turned out to be a tight No5. Not just TIGHT, but REALLY, REALLY tight. Even getting a quarter of a turn was beyond my ability to unbreech.

So I reversed it and breeched up again and discovered to my horror that I'd left the extractor in the supposedly slave bolt head and now, said extractor was trying to wind the extractor way and threads from the barrel PLUS the threads from the body.

Result, one red face and a destroyed rifle. If I remember correctly, it came from the Fiji or Tonga Army so was just written off but there were thousands in Ordnance so I suppose they just got another.

Punishment for these transgressions was usually another day on the ranges test firing yet more batches of the things.........................