WECSOG part II

In the best tradition of the Wiley E. Coyote School of Gunsmithing (WECSOG) I tackled another home amateur gunsmith job today.  I needed to remove a muzzle device from a rifle that seemed to have been installed by Arnold in his younger, fitter days.  

The trick with WECSOG, is as a medical doctor is charged:  to do no harm. Or as a boy scout troop is admonished when camping: leave it in better shape than when you arrived.

For a practitioner of WECSOG the goal is to not bend, break, or otherwise irreparably damage anything when using improved tools for home gunsmithing.

For my project I held the barrel of the rifle in a vise that was padded with an old leather dress belt.  This was to hold the piece tightly in the vise jaws and to stop the metal from being marred.  I knew that the old belt would come in handy!

The muzzle device was cut to nicely fit a 3/4" wrench.  I padded the wrench jaws with two cleaning patches.  

The muzzle device was on so tightly that simply straining at the wrench wasn't going to do anything.  Keeping in mind young Archimedes' declaration involving levers and moving the world, I realized that I needed more leverage to spin this sucker off the barrel.

Vice grip pliers suitably attached to the wrench provided the mounting point for the lever.  A much used pipe that I keep in the Jeep to add leverage to the 4 way tire tool provided the force multiplier that I needed to move the Arnold installed muzzle device.

Steady downward pressure with my mouth held just so and a look of utter determination on my face caused the piece to yield to me and start to turn.  Success!

The leather belt in its encore performance as a gunsmith tool

Archimedes would be proud of me!

The trick here is to get that thing clamped on tight!