Stevens Savage Arms 311? (PICS)

[Seattle206]

yesterday i traded a nintendo wii game for this stevens model 311 SXS 12ga shotgun. the previous owner has never fired in the 25 years of owning it and had been sitting in his garage all this time. when i got it there was a lot of rust and spider webs but after giving it a good clean/oil rub down it looks 90% better. but i have a problem, when i took apart the gun to clean it a small bendable flat metal pin? came out and i have no clue on where it goes back. i did a search on yahoo and looked at several exploded diagrams on several 311 models and still cannot find this little piece. i have a feeling that it came out of the wood forearm.

markings read:

the markings reads:

STEVENS Savage Arms
model 311 series H
2 3/4 & 3inch shells 12GA
Wesfield, MASS USA

c990764

can anybody help me? much appreciated!





this is the piece thats troubling me:



does it go back in here?

 

[evbutler462]

Just guessing. I have had some experience with the 311.

The part you are holding appears to be the latch that goes to the middle of the forearm. Will the gun's forearm latch when you install it? If not, that piece goes in the middle of the forearm. If it doesn't latch, unscrew the screw in the middle of the forearm, pull the wood off and install it on the metal where the hole is that hooks the forearm to the barrel.

Hope this works for you.

 

[Glenn Kelley]

I just went and looked at mine.If it is the forearm latch it should be shaped like a fish hook.You may only have part of it.with the forearm off the barrels the latch should be a flat piece of steel standing up out of the slot in the centre of the wood.

 

[Seattle206]

The part you are holding appears to be the latch that goes to the middle of the forearm. Will the gun's forearm latch when you install it? If not, that piece goes in the middle of the forearm. If it doesn't latch, unscrew the screw in the middle of the forearm, pull the wood off and install it on the metal where the hole is that hooks the forearm to the barrel.

everything goes back together perfectly and latches fine. i inspected the forearm latch area carefully and still cannot see where this little thing ones. weird!

and this little thing is very fragile and bendable too, i dont know what it does.

 

[Seattle206]

so i took apart the forearm and it doesnt look like it has a place for this flimsy piece.
could it be that when my uncle bought it from the previous owner he left this metal thing in there?

 

[New_geezer]

I looked at my Savage Fox-b, which is basically the same gun, and there's nothing like that part in there. I've had the receiver apart before and found nothing like in there either. Are the markings you refer to in the first post on that part, or are those just the markings on the gun itself?

To me it looks like something someone made and put in the gun as a spacer of some sort to either correct some looseness or prevent overtightening.

On some of the older Stevens/Savages the forward most screw in the fore-arm, the one that goes in from the bottom and secures the metal piece to the wood, has a tendency to bend after many rounds and can break. This comes from the recoil of the gun pushing the metal one way and a your tight grip on the wooden fore-arm pushing the other way. Perhaps this was part of some kind of known DIY way to prevent that.

In any event, and this is JMHO, I wouldn't worry about it. Enjoy your new toy. Even tho these guns were fairly common, it's hard to find them in prime shape anymore.

 

[Seattle206]

Are the markings you refer to in the first post on that part, or are those just the markings on the gun itself?

just the markings on gun.

but thanks for the great info. i posted this on two other sites also and they couldnt find out what this little thing was.

my best bet is to test out the gun and see if everything works smoothly.

 

[Black_Talon]

I've got a 311R and there's nothing like that in mine either.

 

[GlowinPontiac]

that looks like somebody rolled up some thin strip of metal to make a shim to realign the forearm.

or that somehow a piece of scrap metal ended up in there from it sitting in a garage all those years.

its definetely a rolled up metal strip and i can almost gurantee the gun did not leave the factory with it and that it was added later.