Gunsmithing: Shotguns. Patrick Sweeney
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the buttplate. In a hole bored through the stock you will see a bolt. The bolt is either a slot-head or hex-head. If it is a slot, use a long screwdriver with a heavy shaft to loosen and remove it. If it is a hex-head, you'll need an extension rod for your wrench.
With the stock off, immerse the receiver in cleaning solvent and let it soak for an hour. Again, scrub and blow dry. Wipe the exterior with an oily cloth. Spray lubricant into the receiver and let it drip out onto a paper towel. Use a high-pressure grease on the hinge pin. Reassemble.
The fastest way to reload a firearm is to grab another loaded one. Faster still is to have another loaded one attached to the first one. When every shotgun was a single-shot shotgun, the fastest way to get a second shot was to have a second barrel. Popular today, the double is deceptively difficult to manufacture, even as it is so easy to use.
Double-Barrels
The double shotgun follows the same pattern as the single, with a lever to open and a hinge pin that lets it pivot open. For most of this century, doubles have had internal hammers. Necessary when shotguns were flintlocks or percussion muzzleloaders, and popular as a safety device when shotguns were cartridge breechloaders, the external hammer faded from use when the double shotgun was passed over as a fighting tool. When internal hammers and their safeties become completely reliable, the external hammer had no advantage. However, with the increase in popularity of Cowboy Action shooting, external-hammer doubles have made a comeback.
The standing breech is the face where the firing pin holes are. The water table is the flat section in front of the breech.
Press the lever and open the shotgun. Make sure it isn't loaded. Close it. Look underneath the forearm. You'll find an inlet bar on the centerline. If the bar has a little lever in it, then press the lever and remove the forearm. If the bar does not, it is the anchor for the spring lock. If you see screw heads but no lever, leave them alone. Work your fingertips between the tip of the forearm and the barrel, and pry the forearm down off the barrel. Open the action and hinge the barrels forward off the action. Scrub the bores.
The top lever opens singles and doubles. (And the much rarer drilling, the triple.)
The action should be brushed clean, the breechface and walertables wiped with an oily cloth, and the hinge pin greased. Like singles, the double is well-sealed. Unlike singles, quite a few doubles have a complicated disassembly routine. In the most complex, the receiver is a sandwich of breechblock and upper tang, with the safety button on the upper tang. The lower tang is a plate that contains the triggers. Some doubles will have fake sidelocks, plates on the sides that look like they are the locks, but are only cosmetic. Unless you know the sequence of screws to remove, you could be loosening something that is supposed to stay tight. And getting it back together with the safety linkage properly engaging the button and bearing against the triggers, can be a frustrating struggle.
I'm not saying you shouldn't take it apart, but you should do so only with written instructions. If your shotgun doesn't have an owners manual, take it to a gunsmith who can properly disassemble it. Explain right up front that you are not looking for a “strip and clean,” but instructions. He will probably charge you as much or a little more to teach as he would to simply clean. Pay attention and take notes.
Hammer guns stayed around so long at the end of the 19th century because you could easily see if it was loaded or cocked. Even if it was loaded, if the hammers weren't cocked, the barrels couldn't be fired.
The shotguns that will be a bear to take apart will be the imported doubles from Spain and England. Because of the difficulty in disassembly of the “sandwich” design, manufacturers have made doubles that have the stock held on with a single throughbolt.
The most common double that uses a stock bolt is the Savage 311. In many parts of the country, when you say “double” everyone will take that to mean “311.” While somewhat heavy and not particularly sleek, the 311 has the advantage of being tougher than a two-dollar steak, I have never seen a 311 broken except through utter neglect, or deliberate abuse or experimentation. All doubles that use a stock bolt must be disassembled by first removing the bolt and stock. To find out if yours is such a double, remove the recoil pad or buttplate and look. If there is a large diameter hole and a bolt or screw head at the bottom, there is your answer.
This is a double, showing one method of locking reinforcement, the center extension.
This view shows the disassembly latch on a Weatherby forearm.
Lift the latch with a fingertip…
…and lift the lever and pivot the forearm away from the barrels.
The forward lump on the bottom barrel secures the forearm.
This is a photo of a Weatherby Orion, showing the over/under design and the Merkel locking lugs on either side of the upper barrel.
A solidly-made shotgun that is given good maintenance will outlast the best of us.
It is easy to see how to remove the firing pins in this gun. All you have to do is grind a special screwdriver to span the pin and engage the nut.
Oil the cocking rod (the dark bar) and put high-pressure grease on the barrel pivot, the hooked knob on the side.
The Ruger, with its lower locking lugs.
One suggestion about scrubbing these receivers; there may be delicate parts or small springs in there. When you first pull the stock off, look carefully at the location of the springs and parts. It is a good idea to make a drawing of the proper orientation of the parts. One early trick I learned was that if a shotgun had been disassembled, or parts had fallen off, the easiest way to determine where the parts went was to compare the one I was working on with an operating example. (This also the reason gunsmiths end up with a couple of hundred guns as a “personal” battery.) You don't have the luxury of owning two of each of your shotguns just to have a working sample with which to compare. Make drawings that are clear to you.
Once you have scrubbed the insides clean and dried them, you have to lubricate them. It may be years until you open that particular shotgun again, and all of the surfaces have to be protected. Oil or other lubricants only protect where they coat.