Have you ever made a silly mistake, a senior moment, a careless lack of attention that has left you puzzling over why something that worked when you took it apart does not work now? It happened to me this afternoon and I am, now, still laughing about it.
The object was my QB78, a basic out of the box somewhat agricultural CO2 rifle that would only achieve about 420fps, .22 AA Field. I had stripped the rifle twice already to see how it ticked: no problems, maybe due to my method with a new, to me, rifle of laying bits out in their correct orientation as I removed them. This afternoon I decided to strip it again for a good clean and fettle: the pellet loading was dire, graunchy as graunchy can be and stiff, the original transfer port was bent/buckled and in fact broke in half on the last strip. A plug that goes on the valve in the cylinder was a very stiff fit and the hammer unit was shockingly unfinished. So apart it came. This is where I made my mistake. On cleaning up the hammer mechanism I put it back down (now gleaming) on the table back to front. I cleaned and deburred with the best of them, cleaned the pellet probe out to 3mm, made a new transfer port from poly tubing, smoothed out the pellet breech channel to the barrel. New seals all round.
Started putting it together. The bolt action was fine until I put the trigger block on, then the bolt had restricted movement. Puzzle. Took trigger unit off again, removed bolt housing convinced I had made an error in assembling this fiddly bit. Did this twice with no improvement. It took me quite a while to realise my mistake ... the hammer mechanism being back to front. Reversed it and hey presto ... all OK again.
To say I felt daft is an understatement but I am sure I am not alone in making such elementary errors. But was it worth it? Yes, it was, the rifle is much smoother and gives me a regular 538 fps with AA Field. So, happy again. You can now start calling me 'twit, daft ol' b***er' or whatever you like.
But now it's confession time:
What senior moments / basic errors/ careless things have you done? If you say 'None' I don't believe you

Cheers, Phil