Why did they do that?

[ggggr]

As a lot of you know, I do still sometimes and have a fair bit in the past, messed with olde crappy guns. Sometimes I have come across repairs, bodges, fixes and general cock ups and often wonder "Why did they do that?"
What I am on about here is not the obvious stuff that kids or chimps might have done, of using any screw with the almost right diameter, in a thread or the self tapping screw option, but the more "creative" or technical ones. Sometimes I have read about people, who obvioulsy have skills, repairing guns, and think that they have found complicted solution to an easy problem. The sort of thing where someone will get some for of plastic to turn up a buffer washer, when leather or a tap washer would be quicker, easier, cheaper and probably better!
The one I saw today has confused me a little. Danny, very kindly sent me most of a stright gripped Webley Mk1 pistol last year. It was painted black, missing the barrel and linkage and a few other things were wrong with it. It had a safety catch with a little bit of round bar welded on to turn it, to make it easier. The safety didn't work or I would have kept it on the gun. Luckily I found one. On removing the right grip, I noticed a little metal spike about 3/8ths of an inch from the grip screw. I looks like the frame had been drilled and tapped on that side, then a screw inserted and filed to a point. I am guessing this was to stop the right grip from moving on cocking.
The other things on this pistol are it has a home made barrel catch and when I removed the paint, the breach block has been welded. The welds dont show in the cylinder although the plug at the rear of the pistol my have fused, but I didn't use much force to try to undo it. The bit of the breach the rearsight goes onto is welded to the sides of the breach block and there looks to have been various pins or screws through from the sides of the block. There are also another small pair of holes drilled for a pin to hold the catch in place. A closer look at the block and it appears the sides have been peeled back and then rewelded.
So far my guess is that the barrel catch jammed and someone hit it hard, backwards trying to jolt it loose, then broke the upright bit of the block the sight went on. It then looks like the sides were hit in an effort to remove a jammed catch. After that a catch was made and the bits welded up.
I assume the person who did the welding was not the same person who did the damage. I've had a look and I cannot see any other reason for this work to be done. I dont think it was an attempt to fit a Senior type catch.

On a different note to the Mk1, I have Bsa Cadet that has a cut down barrel and stock, that has scope grooves machined on the cylinder. They dont seem to be great as it is hard to get a scope to grip them------and they are from the front of the cylinder and don't extend far enough back to get decent eye relief. I guess this gun was done for a child who wanted a small gun with a scope. but it would have been better if the barrel had been left 2 inches longer and had a dovetail recut for the original foresight.
Another one I saw that I couldn't understand was a Pre War BSA break barrel that had the jaws and the breach blocked drilled out and the left jaw tapped and a bolt made up to suit (which wasn't very good). Surely if you had the machinery and skils to do that, leaving the original bolt and making an insert for the left breach jaw would have been the way to go?

[Big Seth]

I've done stuff like that. Tried to make my toys better. Didn't always work but they were my toys- so what's the difference in 50 years. I wasn't toying with the planet....