My step dad had a Savage Model 6 and it was a fun gun to shoot. Especially at dusk, you could see fire at the vent slots on the left side of the receiver. (Those slots let powder residue blow out of the receiver and seem to reduce the need for thorough cleaning.)
The springloaded ball in the receiver is intended to help keep the end cap from unscrewing.
Semi-auto with .22 Long Rifle (with the bolt handle pulled out), bolt action with .22 Short and .22 Long (with the bolt handle pushed in closed).
When it fired semi auto, the bolt locked open, and when you released the trigger it snapped forward to feed a round. With an empty magazine, you could fire, leave the bolt open by holding the trigger, drop a round in the chamber, and release the trigger, then fire as a single shot. Ads from the 1930s billed it as Triple Action: semi auto repeater, bolt action repeater or singleshot. By the 1960s, it was being made as a .22 LR semi-auto only, with no forward lock hole drilled in the receiver.
Refering to Numrich Arms Gun Parts catalog: Savage Models 6A, 6AB & 6B. Also made under the Stevens and Springfield brand names as Models 76A, 87A, 87AB, 87AT and 87B (tube magazine) and 85E, 85KE "clip fed" (box magazine version). It was also made for various chain stores under their house brands.
J.B. Wood, "Troubleshooting Your Rifle and Shotgun", shows the Stevens 87-A and mentions it as identical to the Savage 6A or Springfield 187.
- Imbalance in springs in the firing mechanism can lead to full-auto fire.
- Once the cartridge lifter or carrier is worn, it may cause misfeeds. The lifter has a little toe at one end, once that wears down, the lifter has to be replaced.
- There is a cartridge guide spring that looks like a collar and then there's the carrier spring, U shaped with coils on either side. If those two are properly tensioned and adjusted the gun will run smoothly; getting them properly tensioned and adjusted is no fun (been there, done that). A later redesign did away with the guide spring.
Millions were made over a period of decades, so it is not necessarily a bad gun, but a lot of gunsmiths are familiar with them. That is also why you will find walnut stocks, hardwood stocks, long and short barrels, different sights, bolt handles, etc.: millions were made over the years with changes in style.
The woman at the gun shop said every shooter should own a gun without a SN. Don't know why she said that.
If a .22 has no serial number that means it was made before 1968, when by federal law all new guns had to have serial numbers entered on the federal 4473 sales transaction form. Which I suppose means if the great gun roundup promised by gun control advocates from Carl Bakal through Norval Morris even happens, there won't be any record of millions of pre-1968 .22s and shotguns.
