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Did Savage ever brown any of their rifle parts?

Yes and no. Back in the day, when dinosaurs ruled the earth, the act of bluing steel was called browning for some reason. Perhaps because before there was hot caustic bluing, it was mainly done by rust bluing which entails creating a brown rust on the steel surface first and then turning it blue/black by boiling in water. The term browning was used as a generic term for bluing even after the process we know today as bluing came into general use.

So, instead of boring you with archaic knowledge, no Savage parts were "browned" as we think of it today, they were blued (by various means) or left in their natural case hardening colors (which often turns brown with age and use, example: levers). A lot of old blued guns/gun parts turn brown through neglect/wear/rust, and possibly faults in the original bluing process, misleading people to think perhaps they started out that color.

We commonly brown our muzzle loading parts today because we are used to seeing brown relics from the past and we wish to emulate them when creating modern replicas. What a lot of people don't realize is that many, if not most, gunsmiths left their steel parts bright, not browned. A century or two later, said parts have taken on a brown patina (fine brown rust) that is assumed to have been the original finish.

My uncle had a winchester saddle ring carbine. Model 1894. It still had a barrel full of cosmoline. It still had the original red yarn protecting the receiver from the ring. The bluing ion that piece was as shiny and lustrous as my as new ruger 96. Kinda weird.

Thanks. I bet more than a few will learn from yer post.

There was an old guy in my area who built beautiful bp rifles.
He hung the metal parts from a tree branch and let weather 'brown' them. RIP Dan Collins.

Savage was still referring to 'rust blue' as 'browning' as late as their 1948 parts catalog, that's the last I have seen it called that; note that receivers get 'reblued' -

Thanks once again Gene!

Sure like that price on re-casing the lever!!

I noticed they offer "Convert to left handed safety" for $9.25. What did that entail? Tom

Finding some left handed gun owner who wasn't to cheap to spend $9.25 + shipping.....


(really I don't know)

added - I looked at a 1947 parts catalog and the left handed conversion is not listed, it is in an earlier printing of the 1948. I think there was a thread about left handed safety's that were thought to be factory work a few years ago.

I don't believe I have ever seen a left handed lever safety. Are they referring to the after market tang safety? Tom

some info here, might be similar to what they would have done in 1948. old thread

Reading that old thread was interesting but if that was what Savage was offering I think there should be more examples of left handed safety rifles. Leaving the original right hand lever safety as well as adding a left hand lever safety seems odd. Tom

After thinking about it over night I believe the after market tang safety is what Savage offered as a left handed $9.25 fix in 1949. I believe that is about when some of these kits were offered. I have seen over a dozen of these conversions and all looked factory done. Tom

I have my doubt's about a tang safety conversion comming form the factory. This is the post by Loggah from the above link -



Those pictures look quite similar to this part offered by Numrich, which is possibly an original Savage part from some of the inventory I was told they purchased years ago -
Ambidexterous safety

We could "brown" barrels, primarily A.H. Fox, up to just about 1973 as I remember. It was a piece work job, and only one guy would do it between his other jobs. His name was Junior Banas. A very tall, bent over individual that chewed tobaco and you had to get to know him to understand him. After polishing he would mop on the solution and put the barrel set in a humidity chamber and let it rust. Then wire brush. This would be done over and over until it had just the right sheen. Sometimes this would take days. JTC

Thank you, again.

Does it require any metal work or is it a drop in?

So, if not the "thumbsafe" tang safety, any possibility of this lever safety having been a factory LH option?

Gene,

I have one of those. Came to me when I purchased a box of parts. Still haven't figured out how to make it work.

This is an interesting discussion, but a little complicated now with a second subject working it's way in (I guess my fault for posting a whole catalog page).

But.. back to the browning, it must have been very time consuming and required a lot of shop area when all the barrels were finished with this method. Since I think this is the only process that can be used on double barrels, I wonder what they did after 'Junior' left in the 70's? I remember seeing a captioned picture showing a 720 (or similar) model shotgun receiver being carded off in what I thought was described as the 'browning' process, it surprised me to see that some receivers may have been done with this slow process, I thought it was always just the barrels. I have no idea what year that may have been from, or exactly where I saw it (or if my memory is 100% correct about what I saw).

But... back to the ambidextrous safety, looking at Loggah's pictures it looks like it might require milling clearance in the lower tang for the rear of the safety piece to pass across under the lever.

Receiver finishing mentioned in last post from 1951 catalog, look at lower right corner (if you can get past the rifle at the top)-



Here is a higher resolution detail, it looked hard to read with the full page shown, with the mention of applying heat, I don't think this would be considered the traditional browning process -



It doesn't look that ergonomic having to bend over that tray, might be hard on ones back if done enough years, what did JTC say about Junior?