Savage Model 42 oddities

pathdoc · July 22, 2013, 06:05 PM

We are talking here about the new plastic-stocked .22/410 combination gun rather than the older classic.

I took mine out onto the trap field the other day, not that I expected to hit much with it, but becuase I was shooting from a manual thrower at my feet, the range was much more like what might one find in sporting clays or skeet. I managed to break enough to make it fun, but came across a couple of small problems.

1) I had two failures to fire. One was my fault; the selector being on the hammer has its weaknesses, and when I checked the condition of the firearm, I found I'd accidentally pulled it to the upper barrel rifle position. The other was not; or at least, I recocked the hammer twice and pulled the trigger twice and it still didn't shoot despite the selector clearly being in the "down" (shotgun barrel) position. No primer strike at all. I can't explain this. After I'd opened it, unloaded, reloaded, and had another go at shooting, all was fine and stayed that way, except...

2) The shotgun extractor was, in a word, lousy. Extraction is difficult to impossible, and I was reduced to using a key to pry the little buggers out on occasion (they came out easily this way). The ammo I was using is this in #7.5 shot, http://www.munitionschallenger.com/english/3003e.html , but because I'm fairly new to shotgunning, I don't know how "hot" this is in .410 terms. (The same extractor working on the rifle barrel gave me no issues.)

Anyone else own this gun and have similar issues?

I suspect the extraction problem might be related to firing so many shots in succession, something it really isn't meant to do (and won't be doing all that often) and it's a very short barrelled shotgun with a fixed cylinder choke, being pushed far beyond its intended purpose. This brings us to problem 3, wanting a dedicated .410 shotgun, but that's my problem to sort out.

pathdoc · August 22, 2013, 08:07 PM

This thread has gone unanswered, but for the record I should state that I tried the same thing with different ammunition today (Winchester Super X, same shot size, same payload, roughly the same advertised velocity), and everything ejected smoothly without a problem.

So I feel fairly safe in concluding that it was the ammunition.

MattShlock · August 24, 2013, 08:34 PM

I was gonna say...

Winchester shells that are smooth-sided have some reputation for being hard to extract. Looks like your .410's are the same way -- no ridges built into the hull that reduce friction. With that little thumb-powered ejector button it seems it'd be an ammo issue of it wedding into the chamber.

Failure to fire? Don't like that!!! Still, I'd consider a 20 ga./.22 Mag like my old Model 24.

July 22, 2013, 06:05 PM	#1
pathdoc Senior Member Join Date: February 12, 2013 Posts: 669	Savage Model 42 oddities We are talking here about the new plastic-stocked .22/410 combination gun rather than the older classic. I took mine out onto the trap field the other day, not that I expected to hit much with it, but becuase I was shooting from a manual thrower at my feet, the range was much more like what might one find in sporting clays or skeet. I managed to break enough to make it fun, but came across a couple of small problems. 1) I had two failures to fire. One was my fault; the selector being on the hammer has its weaknesses, and when I checked the condition of the firearm, I found I'd accidentally pulled it to the upper barrel rifle position. The other was not; or at least, I recocked the hammer twice and pulled the trigger twice and it still didn't shoot despite the selector clearly being in the "down" (shotgun barrel) position. No primer strike at all. I can't explain this. After I'd opened it, unloaded, reloaded, and had another go at shooting, all was fine and stayed that way, except... 2) The shotgun extractor was, in a word, lousy. Extraction is difficult to impossible, and I was reduced to using a key to pry the little buggers out on occasion (they came out easily this way). The ammo I was using is this in #7.5 shot, http://www.munitionschallenger.com/english/3003e.html , but because I'm fairly new to shotgunning, I don't know how "hot" this is in .410 terms. (The same extractor working on the rifle barrel gave me no issues.) Anyone else own this gun and have similar issues? I suspect the extraction problem might be related to firing so many shots in succession, something it really isn't meant to do (and won't be doing all that often) and it's a very short barrelled shotgun with a fixed cylinder choke, being pushed far beyond its intended purpose. This brings us to problem 3, wanting a dedicated .410 shotgun, but that's my problem to sort out.

August 22, 2013, 08:07 PM	#2
pathdoc Senior Member Join Date: February 12, 2013 Posts: 669	This thread has gone unanswered, but for the record I should state that I tried the same thing with different ammunition today (Winchester Super X, same shot size, same payload, roughly the same advertised velocity), and everything ejected smoothly without a problem. So I feel fairly safe in concluding that it was the ammunition.

August 24, 2013, 08:34 PM	#3
MattShlock Senior Member Join Date: April 8, 2013 Posts: 251	I was gonna say... Winchester shells that are smooth-sided have some reputation for being hard to extract. Looks like your .410's are the same way -- no ridges built into the hull that reduce friction. With that little thumb-powered ejector button it seems it'd be an ammo issue of it wedding into the chamber. Failure to fire? Don't like that!!! Still, I'd consider a 20 ga./.22 Mag like my old Model 24.