It was friday evening as my friend and I readied ourselves for the next day's match. We were in his shop going over our ammo requirements, checking lists and making arrangements for the next morning. We would typically meet up and head to breakfast on the way to the match. Our preparations were well underway, when he exclaimed that the firing pin in his High Standard Victor was broken. He further questioned, "what could he do at this hour?"

Off he ran to the phone, leaving the two pieces of the pin on the bench. As I picked them up for a closer look, I could hear him making calls. Inspecting the pin gave me the idea that it was quite a simple design and shouldn't be hard nor time-intensive to duplicate, given the correct starting material and the nearby grinder. As I looked around the bench, the perfect item jumped out at me - a center punch! "Tool steel should be quite adequate for a firing pin," I thought. But, I wouldn't think of altering the punch without first checking with my friend. After all, it was his punch.

As I approached him, he was quite engaged in a conversation but I tried a couple of questions, "Do you need this center punch?" He kind of replied that he needed a firing pin. I asked, "But, do you need this center punch to still be a center punch?" He said something equivalent to, "No. Stop bothering me. I've got to find a firing pin." I accepted that as my confirmation I could grind up the punch and went back to the bench and started shaping it.

I worked toward creating an exact duplicate, which I later regretted because the original shape allowed the pin to reach the chamber edge. Had I thought about it, I could have built a shoulder on the new pin which would have compressed the spring solid before it reached the chamber. But, I wasn't into design at the time, just copying, and after only a few minutes with the wheel I had a pretty close duplicate of the first one (excepting the break, of course).

I finished it up and headed back to my friend, who was still making calls looking for a replacement. As I held it in front of him, his eyes opened wider and he paused on the phone, "Hold on a second." "Where'd you get that?" he asked. I replied that I had made it. "Made it? Outta what?" I told him I'd made it from the center punch I'd asked him about.

He finalized his call and we went back to the workbench where he really inspected it, seemingly not believing I could have just ground down a center punch to make this firing pin. But, after examining it closely and comparing it to the other one, he tried it in the gun and all seemed well. The proof came the next morning when the gun functioned flawlessly though the .22 match. I was a little disappointed when he later replaced it with a "real" firing pin, but I can understand. Now he has the one I made in his box as a spare, and conversation/show piece.

After that evening, he has often introduced me to others by telling them that if they gave me some steel wool, I could knit them a gun. -Edwin C. Hall