My young neighbor has a SIG Sauer MPX-K "pistol"

He loves the thing (this type of weapon does NOTHING for me . I have SBRs for that task).

Anyway. He comes over last week and tells me he jammed the bolt backwards in the gun. Can't close the lower and upper receivers, can't get the backwards bolt out of the back of the upper receiver. I wondered how he could put an "AR" type bolt backwards in a bolt carrier, but more about that to come.

I studied the exploded views of the gun as best as I could, and did a Google search about this occurrence, but there was only one thread on the SIG Talk forum about it, with little information. I had him bring it over.

The bolt carrier group and the charging handle were jammed tight in the back end of the upper receiver. I depressed the end of the recoil spring assembly and once I relieved the spring tension on the dual recoil springs and spring plate I was able to easily pull the charging handle and complete assembly out of the back of the upper. No damage or scratches.

Even with doing a little homework beforehand, I didn't realize he didn't put the bolt in backwards - he put the entire assembly in backwards. The dual recoil springs and their guide rods are captive and aren't meant to be taken apart, and the sub assembly is affixed to the bolt carrier.
At this point I noted the recoil spring assembly, bolt carrier, and bolt could be installed backwards in the upper. Geeesh!

He would have had to take the gun to a local smith or ship it back to SIG to get it fixed if I hadn't been able to fix it for him. I don't think a smith would have charged him a lot of money, but if he had to ship the gun back and forth to N.H., the shipping and insurance would have been kind of expensive.

I remember last year he bought a really nice Beretta O/U shotgun and was showing it to me and remarked that he never read the user's manual. I assume it was the same with his MPX-K. I told him I always read the manuals and that he should, too.

He had never even taken the bolt out of the MPX-K carrier to clean it after shooting, and did not know how to do so. That assembly is the same as an AR rifle - cotter pin to take firing pin out of the back of the bolt and cam pin to remove the bolt from the bolt carrier.
I lubed the gun for him, showed him the spots where it should be applied, showed him how to take down and reassemble an AR pattern bolt and put it back together, did a function check, and it's good to go.

He was bummed out, now he's happy. It felt good to give him a hand

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Malysh,

Nicely done. You're a good neighbor.

In the words of Mr. Rogers, “Would you be my neighbor?”

The standard rate for fixing your gun is a bottle of whiskey at my house.

My buddy once brought me a sig238 in a box..it took me hours to get it back together...I told him he should always read the book.

I'll be by over the weekend for a similar treatment, please, and thank you.

I wish you were my neighbor, I hope he appreciates having a neighbor to be able to talk guns with.

HK Ag

He and his girlfriend are nice people.
I was happy to help out.

Often my co-workers would bring me a disassembled gun in a zip lock bag.
Reassembly fee was lunch.