J. C. Higgins 101.1/Savage 94

Recently, along-time customer brought me his father’s old single shot shotgun. He and his dad had just spent a brief reunion the weekend before, shooting the sixty-year-plus .410. During the shooting session the "top snap"—unlocking lever—had quit and they could no longer open the shotgun. During the lengthy process of repairing the gun, I "invented" two significant tips that will absolutely be a blessing should any of you need to disassemble one of these firearms, which I will share in the paragraphs that follow.

The customer assured me there were no live rounds inside, which was a bit of relief, assuming he was correct. Unable to open the gun to check, the stock had to be removed to get to the mechanism(s) inside. However the stock bolt was frozen! Perhaps rusted in place? Regardless, no amount of screwdriver effort had any effect, despite several days of adding Kroil and firmly tapping on the bolt head. So, as a last resort I rigged up a lengthy screwdriver bit assembly to my air-operated impact wrench.

This is the same kind of wrench often used for removing lug nuts from auto/truck wheels. Mine is a "lightweight" model, delivering about 200 foot-pounds of torque and not adjustable for less! This would be a one shot attempt, I thought. The heavy torque on the bolt head, would either strip away the screwdriver slot, or completely shear off the bolt head itself, or bust loose the rusted threads. In the worst case, I’d have to cut apart the stock to expose the innards and then find the customer anew stock.

Fortunately, it was third result. I had lucked out! Once I got the stock removed, the problem was obvious. The top snap screw (#16 on the exploded drawing) that holds the "paddle and fork assembly" (parts #9, 10, and 11) that connected the unlocking lever to the locking bolt assembly top snap sleeve had worked loose. However, getting to the screw was going to be a problem. At the bottom right corner a screwdriver is being used to unseat the mainspring plunger.

Limited to the picks and screwdrivers in my shop, I was unable to accomplish this, so I had to devise another solution. The hole where the plunger rested had been drilled all the way through, at the factory, so I threaded it and inserted a bolt to compress the spring, allowing me to remove the assembly. I consulted Gun Digest Book of Shotguns Assembly/Disassembly, Second Edition by Kevin Muramatsu and Firearms Assembly: The NRA Guide to Rifles and Shotguns by Joseph B. Roberts Jr. on the disassembly process.

Unfortunately, neither one of these two books was much help on this specific issue. The area inside the frame was insufficient to get any kind of screwdriver I had in there to tighten the screw. To complicate things further, the mainspring, hammer spring / plunger assembly, (parts 13, 14, and 15) were in the way as well. Here comes the first tip of my solution to this.

First, I had to remove the mainspring plunger assembly, however, there was no obvious way to do this and the books had poor photos showing something like a screwdriver prying the plunger seat out of the gun. I tried a number of screwdrivers, picks, etc. Nothing I tried worked. Then, I noticed the seat in the frame

The tip of the screwdriver is just above the top snap screw, mentioned above. This was the only way I could access the screw to tighten it. The hole would later be concealed by the trigger guard. that held the plunger was drilled all the way through the end of the frame. I measured at about 0.215" inside diameter, so I tapped it for a 1/4" x 24 thread and cranked in a blunt 1/4" x 24 bolt. This compressed the spring enough to press the entire spring assembly slightly below the rear of the frame.

Next, protecting myself from the anticipated violent release of the heavy spring, I wrapped several layers of shop towels around my left hand. With my right hand, I pushed the assembly outward. The result was another significant victory! As it Using the spindle on the mill, the rod was pressed down to compress the mainspring plunger assembly downward until it cleared the rear of the frame.

Once the assembly was just inside the frame, a pair of Channellock pliers moved everything the rest of the way into place. turned out, the shop towels weren’t necessary, but as my Dad used to say, "Better safe than sorry." For the second tip of my solution, I had to address the loose "top snap screw". The quotes are on purpose as this is not shown on the parts diagram. Studying the arrangement, I noted that by removing the rear trigger guard screw I

J. C. Higgins 101.1/Savage 94 (Speci ications subject to change without notice) 1 Top snap 2 Locking bolt plunger spring 3 Locking bolt plunger 4 Locking bolt assembly 5 Firing pin screw 6 Firing pin 7 Barrel 8 Front sight 9 Top snap plunger spring 10 Top snap plunger 11 Top snap sleeve 12 Hammer 13 Mainspring plunger seat could rotate the trigger guard 90 degrees or more, exposing a decent area directly opposite the top snap screw, which would be concealed upon reattaching the trigger guard.

So, I drilled a 3/16" hole there and was able to insert a lightly ground and shimmed screwdriver through the hole to tighten the screw. Ta da! I checked the operation of the lever and everything worked.

Using the newly-tightened lever, I then opened the breach, confirmed there were no live rounds inside, then removed the barrel for cleaning. 14 Mainspring 15 Mainspring plunger assembly 16 Top snap screw 17 Frame 18 Locking bolt, hammer pin 19 Trigger guard screw 20 Trigger spring 21 Trigger 22 Trigger pin 23 Extractor 24 Ejector spring 25 Ejector starter pin 26 Trigger guard 27 Trigger guard screw 28 Ejector hook 29 Extractor stop pin Unfortunately, for complete reassembly I still had to figure out away to compress the mainspring and get the whole mainspring plunger assembly back into place.

Obviously, the blunt 1/4" x 24 bolt wouldn’t help, and only one of the two books barely addressed this. The photo caption in the book says, "when replacing the hammer spring assembly, note that the longer lobe at the front of the guide goes at the top.

The best way to install this assembly is to grip the front of the receiver in a padded vise, pointing downward, and use a 30 Extractor lever pin 31 Fore-end spring 32 Fore-end spring spring 33 Fore-end spring spring pin 34 Fore-end spring housing screw 35 Fore-end spring housing 36 Fore-end spring pin 37 Fore-end iron head screw 38 Fore-end head 39 Fore-end wood 40 Fore-end screw 41 Butt plate screw 42 Butt plate 43 Stock 44 Stock bolt 45 Stock bolt washer specially ground Vise-grip plier (not shown) to guide the spring base into place.

There is no really easy way to do it." Ground how? Ground where? Damn right there’s no easy way to do it! I studied the problem, with five different sizes of locking pliers and came up with nothing. So, I quit for the day to sleep on it. Accordingly, later that night in bed, where I often get solutions out of nowhere, I thought about incorporating a large Harbor Freight clamp/spreader that I had. The next day, donning my best pair of safety glasses, I put the shotgun action in my milling machine vise, vertically.

In a mill chuck, I put in a slippery 3/8" diameter white nylon rod from my junk box. The plan was to use the rod to compress the assembly and it being "slippery" is one of the reasons for the safety glasses. Moving the rod down with the mill spindle, immediately adjacent the frame, the end of the nylon rod would spread the load. Because it was slippery, I could then move the assembly sideways, incrementally.

Still pushing the nylon rod, I moved the mill spindle down further until the assembly was just below the inside of the frame. Then, using the Harbor Freight clamp, I safely forced the mainspring plunger sideways until it was barely inside the frame. Once there, a pair of Channellock pliers moved the assembly the rest of the way into place. Voilà! I certainly have no idea how they did all this at the factory, but a quick reattachment of the trigger guard covered my drilled hole.

Then, after rechecking the mechanisms, I put the stock and barrel back on, checking again, and everything worked. It turned out the customer was somewhat familiar with the inside parts configuration and was curious as to how in the world I had accomplished the disassembly and reassembly. I recounted the above and he was delighted, insisting on paying me considerably more than I asked! AG