So, I managed to shoot the front sight off my PMR-30. Well, not the whole front sight, just the bright green bit that you put between the two bright orange bits. The black part that holds the bright green fiber optic may be more old-school, but gun ranges are dim, dark streets dimmer, and I like bright shiny colors.
Kel-Tec's version of customer service: I ask how to send gun back, since I can't find the part locally. They mail new sight free... a third-generation version. (Apparently, other folks had issues.) Really, you can't beat the customer service!
A good friend and I break out the manual, with Calmer Half looking fondly on, and we start cleaning it. By which I mean he disassembled it, re-assembled it once he was certain he knew how it went, and stood by while I very slowly followed his (and the manual's) directions. Nice thing about American-made products: the manual is not in Engrish, it's in American. The spring did defeat my hand strength; I had to ask for male help. I am not too put out about this; I have to ask for help on pickle jars, too, because I misplaced my not-for-plumbing strap wrench.
Unfortunately, the sight is nicely dovetailed, and trying to drift it out gently didn't work. So what's a gal with lots of improvised and inappropriately sized tools to do?
...Take it to a gunsmith, of course!
It took the gunsmith maybe fifteen minutes to disassemble, note where I'd gotten the recoil buffer backward when I'd reassembled it, note the rarity of a customer cleaning a gun before bringing it in for work, pop the old sight out, put the new one in, adjust it to be straight, and reassemble the gun. The gunsmith rocks, and I will highly recommend him if you ask.
The attached shop, not so much. After being in there, I growled and shuddered on the way to the truck, shaking off the store's miasma like a dog shedding water. Calmer Half gave me a puzzled look. "Love?"
"Next, I'm taking you to a lingerie store, so you can feel freakin' invisible to the sales staff and be talked over and past! You note how the idiot behind the counter turned to you and asked if you were buying anything else when I put the ammo on the counter? And went for your credit card when I pulled out my wallet? And tried to hand the bag to you? The reason I asked him a direct question in your conversation was so he had to actually look me in the chest and acknowledge I exist. I won't darken their doorstep again!"
Calmer Half, wise man that he is, made soothing noises and gave me ice cream. Astronaut ice cream from the gift shop after exploring a science museum, but it counts!
"the bright green bit that you put between the two bright orange bits"
ReplyDeleteAll this technical jargon is so hard to follow sometimes.
Y'all (women) need to raise more hell about your treatment when that happens. YOU have just as much right to be informed as we do!!!
ReplyDeleteMSGt B - and yet, you knew exactly what I meant, didn't you?
ReplyDeleteNFO - I only raise hell when I expect to be back, or care enough to want it fixed - and think there's a fighting chance that it will. In this case, Calmer Half had a rare lapse in keen-eyed observation of the world, and was happily oblivious to the whole thing right in front of him. (I think he was distracted by lever-action rifles behind the counter.)
Since he was having a fine old time while I was quietly seething, I avoided dragging him into a fight and making him back me up for something he wasn't even aware was going on.
Instead, I became the customer that wise shop owners fear: the one who doesn't give them a chance to make it better, and walks out not only crossing them off the list of places to money, but actively willing to steer people away.
In the many years spent in retail auto sales, I fired many salesmen and saleswomen for allowing their personal bias to harm our profitability.
ReplyDeleteA customer is anyone willing to make a purchasing decision and has the means to complete the transaction. They are to be treasured.
Those that failed to learn that lesson soon found themselves at "Down the Road Motors".