[CoDog]

Hey folks,
My father-in-law was nice enough to give me an old Savage 12ga Model 30f.

I have recently shot it at the range and it certainly needs a good cleaning.

I can not figure out how to break it down. A very knowledgeable guy at the range identified my gun for its make, I guess they are not too common, but he too could not figure the break down method.

He said he thought the tube below the stock rotated 1/4 turn to release, but alas, we could not get it free.

Any help would be appreciated. Also any idea of year and worth? Just curious.

Codog in Dallas

[fullfreedom]

I have the same problem as CoDog with a Savage Model 30F pump and no owner's manual. I need to break it down and clean it. I have been unable to find a manual online. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks.

[mnrivrat]

What makes you think it is a break down gun ?

[fullfreedom]

Mnrivrat,
I don't know that the Savage Model 30F pump is a weapon that can be broken down (disassembled). That's one of the reasons I am looking for a manual. Discussions at other sites seem to indicate the weapon can be disassembled. Perhaps not... but, I still would like to have a manual. Thanks.

[Lee Lapin]

I'd bet the chances are you don't really need to tear the gun down to clean it- cleaning the bore and chamber will probably cover whatever the gun really needs to have done to it on the inside, unless it's been abused/neglected. Some designs are pretty user-friendly where field stripping is concerned. Other designs are not user friendly in that regard.

The Savage/Stevens/Springfield guns that share this common design are not really very user friendly... barrels are fixed on most of them and the receivers are often a bear to get into.

BUT if you insist on going ahead anyway, at least start by removing the buttstock first. You see, the stock bolt screws into an extension of the trigger plate, and when tightened it causes the buttstock to exert pressure against the rear of the receiver while pulling against the trigger plate. That pressure effectively binds the cross screw (Part #1) and pin (Part #48) which hold the trigger plate in place. I've seen several of these guns battered pretty badly when owners took what they thought was the obvious route to disassembly and tried to remove the screw and pin without taking off the buttstock first. You can see what I'm talking about in the exploded drawing at http://www.urban-armory.com/diagrams/savage67.htm .

IIRC the Gun Digest series of takedown and reassembly manuals has an entry on this design in the Shotgun volume ( http://www.gundigeststore.com/product/the-gun-digest-book-of-firearms-assembly-disassembly-part-v-shotguns/assembly-disassembly ). I don't know how much good an owners manual would do you in this regard, I suspect not much.

I'd not encourage you to press forward with taking this particular gun apart on your own, I think it's a bad idea. It wasn't really designed to be field stripped, like an 870 was. IMHO guns like the Savage/Stevens/Springfield pumps should be marked "No owner serviceable parts inside.' Clean the bore, lubricate the mechanism lightly as needed, attend to the outside and let it go at that, is what I'd suggest.

Being as how this is the Internet probably someone will come along shortly who detail strips their Savage 30 every other day and twice on Sunday, and they'll tell you it's no big deal to take the gun apart and reassemble it, and that I don't know what I'm talking about. But them's the breaks...

lpl