I am always losing things......

[Kiwi cop]

A few days ago I spent over half an hour scouring my man cave for the folding knife I keep on my reloading bench. I know I put it on the top shelf along with the allen keys to adjust my presses, but couldn't find it. But that is nothing compared to what happened this morning.

Back in the mid 1990's I replaced the springs in my 686-4 AFS with a Wolff standard ribbed power mainspring and 13Ib trigger return spring. The result was a trigger so smooth and light that a few have asked me who did the trigger job. Then about 3 years ago I got a 1942 civilian Victory in .38 S&W for use in a Classic Pistol match. The standard trigger was pretty heavy so I ordered in a 3 pack of ribbed mainsprings and a pack of 5 different weight trigger return springs (I keep all the original parts in a plastic tub with a sealable lid in my ammo cupboard) and changed over the originals in the Victory.

Some time later I went to dig out the extra two mainsprings to give one to a club member with a 686 and I couldn't find them. I opened every container in both the ammo cupboard and my reloading area to no avail.

Then yesterday I was lifting my range bag out of the car when the bottom fell out. I was able to drop it to the ground fast enough to stop everything spilling out, then lifted it from underneath into the range and back out to the car again.

This morning I took an old duty bag out to the car to swap everything over. I pulled out all the containers of ammo, 1911 parts, range notebooks, cleaning kit, etc along with ear muffs, glasses, staplers, and was left with the bottom of the bag covered in broken plastic from the old bottom cover, spilt staples, strips of patches. All the usual stuff that gets caught up in the bottom of a range bag over the years.

As I lifted the bag out of the car to put it in the bin a few more items fell out, among them the two Wolff ribbed power mainsprings!

How they ended up loose in the bottom of my range bag I have no idea. (I wish I could find the small disc and pin used to hold the flash hider onto the barrel of my Lithgow .308 L1A1 though. The last time I saw it was in a small plastic bag with the flash hider).

So now I have put the springs in under the foam lining of my 686 carry box with he remaining trigger return springs.

Now where did that bloody knife go?

 

[soFlaNative]

Next time you look they'll be back on the top shelf with your car keys and glasses...

 

[kraynky]

You are not alone Kiwi cop, I've been doing stuff like that for as long as I can remember. I just tell myself that the wife must have moved whatever it is I'm missing. I lost a .380 Makarov in my own house for about 2 years. It finally turned up on the top shelf of the foyer closet. How it got there is still a mystery.

 

[perryhd]

It's not at all uncommon for me to spend more time looking for something than I do using it.

 

[BC38]

It's not at all uncommon for me to spend more time looking for something than I do using it.

HECK YEAH! Happens to me ALL the time...

 

[ParadiseRoad]

 

[SC_Mike]

Of all the things I've lost I miss my mind the most.

 

[Kiwi cop]

Of all the things I've lost I miss my mind the most.

If you find any trace of my mind while looking for yours, please let me know.

 

[Chuck24]

Somewhere in my 3 bedroom house are about 600 pocket knives,1000 nail clippers and some Christmas lights I bought on sale in 1989.

 

[Fishslayer]

My favorite S&W folder was MIA for over a week. It's a cheapo so it was no big $$$ loss but I have it tweeked just to my liking.

Was rooting around behind the seats of the truck a couple days ago & there it was, on the passenger side floor. No clue how it got there. Must have been The Borrowers.

 

[Muley Gil]

Of all the things I've lost I miss my mind the most.

I don't have that problem. I keep my brain in a peanut butter jar under the bed and every now and then, I take it out and play with it.

 

[Frank46]

I've been tossing my spare change into a big nut jar for the last year or so. Kinda my rainy day fund. Only about 1/3rd full, looks like that rainy day is going to have a long wait. Frank

 

[Wee Hooker]

Welcome to my world, Kiwi. The good news is that you'll soon get to hide your own Easter eggs.

 

[sheepdawg]

Having trouble finding something??? Go buy it's replacement. I guarantee you will find what was lost within five minutes of getting back home.

 

[Kiwi cop]

And the latest instance...

A few weeks ago I went to the hardware store and bough a packet of 2" galvanised flat head nails and some corrugated 3/4" timber joiners for a couple of small repairs to the house. When I got home I clearly remember putting them in the front of the shelf in my garage cabinet where I keep nails.

This morning I went to do those two little jobs but the nails and joiners were not on the shelf. I took everything off the shelf to no avail, so I started to empty every shelf in the cupboard.

I found the items right at the back of the shelf that holds metal screws, three shelves over and two up!

Now how did that happen????

 

[shouldazagged]

Don't feel bad. Years ago, when I was still middle aged, I looked all day in a small apartment for an insurance policy.

Found it the next day. In the refrigerator.

No, I wasn't drinking.

 

[straightshooter1]

Most of these posts are amusing, Zags is downright funny.

But, I am thrilled to see that I am not the only one who puts stuff in a particular place, comes back for it a month or two later, and finds it gone.

At a Sporting Clays Shoot, I got a bunch of decent stuff from a Mercedes dealer (No I ain't got no Mercedes, the guy just gave stuff to competitors) among which was a 5.11 knife. I left it in its box, put it in the drawer of a box in the garage and went on with life.

I sent my Benchmade to the factory for their Lifesharp treatment and thought I'd carry the 5.11 for the couple weeks my good knife was gone. But it wasn't in the drawer!

I looked for that knife for hours that day, a couple of hours the next, then, looked for a couple of months whenever I remembered it.

Then, five or six months after I "lost" it, I opened the drawer and there it was, sitting right there in its box!

I was pretty shocked and astounded and my wife thought I was simply crazy.

Then I opened the box and examined the knife. Grrrrrr. Made in China junk! Woundn't have carried it anyway.

Bob

 

[Vulcan Bob]

Nice to see we are not alone! Heck I sorta lost a 7 1/2" Ruger Redhawk (a big revolver!) for a few months, found it sleeping under the Colts in the Colt shelf. At the moment I've been looking for my High Standard Supermatic Citation Military for about three weeks now. The best way to lose something is to put it somewhere safe!

 

[Lt JL]

My problem is that I'll put something away in a place I know I will remember, and then, I don't.
Once lost my Benchmade Auto Stryker. Went crazy searching for it, gave up, paid the big bucks for another. A few days later, the original fell out of the bottom of my recliner.

 

[Kiwi cop]

Was chronographing some loads today writing each velocity in my notebook for prosperity. I usually put my pen back on the centre of the notebook between shots but when I went to look for it the even was not there.

Th epen is a stainless steel Parker, a gift from my stepson (and that's a story too).

Checked my pockets. Checked under the table. Checked all over the table.

Finally went to my range bag on the bench behind me to get out a basic ballpoint. On the way back to the shooting bench I picked up a cartridge case that had fallen away from the others. Went to put it into the container with the other cases and there was my pen, half covered in brass.

DOH!!!

 

[Kiwi cop]

he story of THAT pen!

This is too good not to tell.

I have a stepson in his late 30's. At he age of 18 he was diagnosed a paranoid schizophrenic. His condition is kept under control with medication (it has been almost 15 years since he last had to be admitted to hospital for a medication change) but he is obsessive, probably OCD.

16 or 17 years ago he bought me a stainless steel Parker pen for Christmas. Every day as I went to work he would ask me if I had my pen with me. Every day I came home he would check that I had not lost it.

One day I did lose the pen so on my way home I called into the local Parker retail agent and replaced it (pen #2).

Several years later I was working in another location when I lost my pen. So again I bought a replacement before going home (pen #3).

Lo and behold a day or so later I lost pen #3 so went and bought pen #4. That same day I was doing paperwork in the constables room and had to leave in a hurry. I left my pen sitting on the workbench and when I returned it was gone (you can never trust other cops with a nice pen was my thought). So it was straight back to the retail agent to buy pen #5.

I then went on four days off shift. When I returned to duty I found both pens # 3 and 4 sitting in my file tray where some kind soul had left them.

I now have three identical pens. One is permanently set into the front pocket of my stabproof vest. One sits on top of my bedroom drawers and goes into my pocket every day. It stays in my civvie shirt pocket in my locker at work.

The last pen sits in the top drawer of my bedside cabinet.

Every now and then I lose one of my home pens. Usually it gets caught in the car's seatbelt as I am taking it off. And occasionally I forget to take it out of my shirt pocket before the shirt goes into the washing machine (big mess requiring the pen be sent away to be properly cleaned out. Thank goodness for Parker's lifetime warranty). Once I lost both pens again a few days apart. I found one clipped to the car seatbelt as I guessed I would and the other between the drivers seat and the door sill.

And I still get asked twice each work day if I have my pen.

 

[labworm]

Don't feel bad. Decades ago, when I was still middle aged, I looked all day in a small apartment for an insurance policy.

Found it the next day. In the refrigerator.

No, I wasn't drinking.

Figured I'd make a correction to your post.

 

[chaparrito]

I lose so many things I have recently decided, when setting out to look for whatever I'd lost, to look in the LAST place first, because the last place I look is always where I find stuff. I'm hoping it'll save a lot of time and frustration.

 

[eveled]

I try to pretend I have what I'm looking for in my hand and I want to put it some place safe. Then when I go to put away the pretend one, the real one (I'm actually looking for) is usually in the spot.

 

[Kiwi cop]

My latest "loss"

At the end of 1998/early 1999 I was given two 2 litre (1 quart) plastic ice-creme containers. The first held a couple of hundred 30-30 Win cases, the second a similar number of lead gas checked .308 FP projectiles. So I did what any self respecting handloader does, I loaded them up and sighted my pre AE '94 in to shoot them.

Earlier this year I took my replacement '94 to the range with the final remaining 30 rounds to sight it in. Then began the very long process of replacing my ammo.

I own't bore you with the details of the issues involved (unable to find commercial lead bullets, Lee lead pot needing a new thermostat, sourcing a new bullet mould, finding gas checks (who today casts their own?) and deciding on a powder to use).

Last Monday I went out to the man cave to start sizing and priming brass. That was when I discovered my 30-30 dies were "missing".

I looked in every die container on my shelf where I keep the rifle dies. I then went through all the pistol dies. Pulled everything away from the walls to check that the dies and not fallen off the shelf and into a box or behind the safe. Under my loading bench to see if they had fallen there somehow.

After spending more time than I should have, and being unable to find the dies anywhere I called by supplier. He had none in stock but arranged to order some in and send them to me.

Friday afternoon I got a text from a CAS shooter at my club. They had been setting up the range for an annual event next weekend and had picked up a large number of 9mm and .45 ACP cases left over from an IPSC match about 6 weeks ago. He had left the .45 cases for me in the club rooms.

I picked up the cases on my patrol and when I got home at 2300 I went onto the man cave and put them in the tumbler. Saturday morning I went out and took them from the tumbler. After sifting off the media I put the cases into the container I usually keep them in then started to tidy up a few things on my bench.

Sitting in front of my .45 press was a box of dies that had been left open long enough to start to oxidise in the salt air (I live in a coastal town and keeping anything steel rust free is an effort).

I picked up a can of CRC, sprayed the dies in the box, took the bronze brush off the hook on the wall, picked up the first die to give it a scrub and decided to look at the die to see what calibre it was.

Yep.... they were my 30-30 dies.

Then I remembered taking them off the shelf a few weeks ago to put them into a turret for my press, but finding no spare turrets (one of those issues previously mentioned).

Lost in plain sight.

 

[Salty RI]

I found out a long time ago, dont put anything in a safe place, if you do you will never find it again.[emoji1]

Sent from my LGL52VL using Tapatalk

 

[CCHGN]

Hmmm , I'm always tightening things.

 

[Ole Joe Clark]

I'm on the lookout for a leather strop (old belt) that I glued to a nice piece of 3/4" plywood. Last time I saw it was in the reloading/gun/music room a couple of months ago. If anyone sees it please send me a PM and tell me where to look.

Have a blessed day,

Leon

 

[Kiwi cop]

Where did I put it????

Yesterday was the 5th Sunday of the month. That meant it was range working bee day at the club.

I snuck out early to test fire some ammo in my Tanfoglio CZalike fitted to a Roni type carbine. The trigger on this pistol (which I used to think pretty good compared to my duty G17) was actually heavy and creepy.

Some time ago I found a series of videos on YouTube about stripping and polishing up a Tanfoglio CZ SP01, so after getting home yesterday I went out to the man cave, cued up the videos on my phone and set to work.

With the pistol stripped down I decided I should give the frame a good clean. I grabbed my cleaning kit out of my range bag, took out the top and end of a cleaning rod together with a bronze brush and scrubbed every nook and cranny of that frame. I then put the cleaning rod down near the kit on the floor.

Well giving the internals of that pistol a polish up was a whole lot different than doing the same thing to a 1911. When I started to put the pistol back together I ran into some issues, mainly with the sear, sear cradle and sear spring. It took me over an hour to work out how the blasted thing actually went back together again.

When I finished I put all my tools away. I then put the toolbox back into my range bag and started to put the cleaning kit into the little compartment I keep it in. But I couldn't find the rod or brush.

I now it is around my loading bench somewhere, and eventually it'll turn up, but right now it is bugging me.

Where the heck did I leave it??????

PS: That trigger is now almost creep free, but still heavy for a pistol trigger. Hope I'm not in for a whole lot of money for new internal parts. In the meantime a reduced power hammer and firing pin spring are on the way.

 

[Old 44 Guy]

KIWI, Your messages keep my stitches. A m about the same with things getting lost. While at church years back a friend asked to borrow my knife, I said OK & handed him my pocket knife. Never thought much more about it until the next morning when changing into my work pants. My knife was gone. Later the Pastor told me he had my knife, the guy that borrowed had retuned to the Pastor.