Life Hacks Thread

[vcdgrips]

RJ-
You inspired the use of a polymer dress shirt collar stay for the same purpose.

Thx!

[RoyGBiv]

I like to use a broken wood toothpick.
When I break it, I intentionally try to do so in a way that leaves a longish skinny "tail" of wood.
I find it works better to get around the connector and into the corners that way.

[CSW]

Can o compressed air for your computer keyboard works just as well to get rid of that schmutz.

[RJ]

Sourced another useful gun-bench tool at Harbor Freight; the 69093 "4-in-1 Quick Change Multi-Head Hammer".

https://www.harborfreight.com/4-in-1...ti+head+hammer

At $4.99, I picked this up as a slightly heavier mallet for punching out 1911 MS housing pins, or knocking on Sig sights with my Dawson aluiminum sight punches. With the Red (Medium) head, it weighs 409g/14.4 oz (compared to my previous mallet, shown left, at 176g/6.2 oz.)

[blues]

I gotta say that's a pretty strange coincidence, RJ. About an hour ago for no discernible reason, I was thinking about the inexpensive gunsmithing mallet with interchangeable heads I bought from amazon years ago. And then I wondered why in the heck did that pop into my head. Then I see your post. Weird.

Get out of my head.

ETA:

This is the one I bought at amazon a few years back.

[RJ]

I gotta say that's a pretty strange coincidence, RJ. About an hour ago for no discernible reason, I was thinking about the inexpensive gunsmithing mallet with interchangeable heads I bought from amazon years ago. And then I wondered why in the heck did that pop into my head. Then I see your post. Weird.

Get out of my head.

ETA:

This is the one I bought at amazon a few years back.

I guess telekinetics is a thing.

But really, that's pretty weird. Still; that's a nice mallet as well.

[RJ]

I have an upcoming range session with my 1911, that I plan to try and benchrest some shots to confirm where it shoots in terms of point of impact vs. point of aim. So my thoughts turned to what I could use for a benchrest.

After discarding my usual item (a .30 cal ammo can covered by a towel) as a bit, ah, agricutural, I looked for inexpensive alternatives online. I didn't find anything immediately, so I cast around for what I could make one out of.

I saw one video where a guy simply cut out some wooden blocks and glued them together. That led me to see what I had in terms of scrap, when I happened upon some left over Harbor Freight 1/4" interlocking 2x2 pads I had laying about.

Hmmm.

Couldn't I just cut these out, and kinda stack up in little blocks, then attach it to a bigger piece, as a platform? If it worked, it would be really lightweight. And cheap. And fit in the range bag. Oh, and cheap.

10 minutes with an exacto knife and 4 tie-wraps:



The bottom piece is maybe 4" x 10", and the blocks are perhaps 2" x 4", but vary a bit. I ended up with 9 layers, so the "block" stands about 4" or so off the bottom.

My thinking is that for what I want to do, if I press firmly into the foam, the material will give slightly, but enable me some wiggle room in elevation so as to adjust the sight picture, and still be stiff enough to hold the muzzle still when I break the shot. I don't need to keep the gun down, specifically, since I plan to have a firing grip on it. I threaded the tie-wraps through the bottom base pad, just had to cut a slit with my exacto knife and slip the end of the tie-wrap through, then wrap around the "block" to keep it as a unit.

It seems to work well enough statically:



I'll give this a go at the range soon.

[RJ]

I was casting around for a non-marring punch to drive MSH pins into my 1911 the other week. I have a small softfaced mallet I use for this, but my accuracy is not terribly great and sometimes I end up hitting my grip (bad) or fingers (worse).

I found out about one Brownells sells, with a nylon insert in an aluminum body, about 3 to 4 inches long.

https://www.brownells.com/tools-clea...s-drift-punch/

I love Brownell's stuff, but their shipping is a bit high. So I ordered a Delrin rod for $2 off eBay (amusingly shipping was $4.99), size 3/8" by 6". Delrin^(R) is a tough, lightweight and durable acetal homopolymer invented by DuPont. And I'd guess a bit more durable than Nylon.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/38563043381...3814&recoPos=1

I trimmed it to 4" and lightly chamfered the ends. Works well and feels nice in the hand. It's joined my Glock Armorer's tool as one of my favorite desktop fidget spinners.

[SecondsCount]

@RJ. That's a good solution.

Is the MSH pin on your 1911 cupped on one end? I use a smaller punch from my $5 Harbor Freight set that fits nicely into the little cup on the end of the pin.

It looks like inflation now has them at $10 a set

Or you can always get the original

[Exiledviking]

I was casting around for a non-marring punch to drive MSH pins into my 1911 the other week. I have a small softfaced mallet I use for this, but my accuracy is not terribly great and sometimes I end up hitting my grip (bad) or fingers (worse).

I found out about one Brownells sells, with a nylon insert in an aluminum body, about 3 to 4 inches long.

https://www.brownells.com/tools-clea...s-drift-punch/

I love Brownell's stuff, but their shipping is a bit high. So I ordered a Delrin rod for $2 off eBay (amusingly shipping was $4.99), size 3/8" by 6". Delrin^(R) is a tough, lightweight and durable acetal homopolymer invented by DuPont. And I'd guess a bit more durable than Nylon.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/38563043381...3814&recoPos=1

I trimmed it to 4" and lightly chamfered the ends. Works well and feels nice in the hand. It's joined my Glock Armorer's tool as one of my favorite desktop fidget spinners.

I have a Delrin rod just like that. I bought it to push rear sights primarily on Glocks and sights on HKs. I wanted something that would not mar the sights or the slides. It's been very useful for other things too like putting the mainspring housing pin back in place.