Ask Pete about the nut on the back block of his BSA Mercury, I dare you.
That tale is the airgun equivalent of one of Kafka's short stories. It has a happy ending though, but not until you have experienced despair and existential anguish beyond your darkest imaginings.
It's a tribute to Pete's moral courage and infinite patience that he did not just go barmy and batter it to death with a sledge-hammer or chop it up with an angle-grinder. I think I would have.