I have a chance to buy an early model 20 #18xx but have a few questions:
are there any triggers available for them or improvements that can be made to the factory ones?
this one is not d&t for the Lyman peep,anyone scope one with a model 70 stith mount?
this one has had the stock repaired and refinished,not checkered, good bore, sling swivels, asking $800 is that a little high?

No. At least with any REAL degree of improvement. It 2 stage and just something to get used to. It's no real detriment.

IMO. $800.00 is not "too" high. BUT with the repair and refinish, I'd at least TRY to negotiate the price. These aren't rare, but they don't come along every day either. JMO FWIW.

YOU CAN SCOPE IT With a STITH. Yes I Have One. Butt Ugly

How-ever MILLER KODIAK MOUNT Will Work FACT PHILL 99 Had One
I have a FEW OF THOSE MOUNTS.

The Rifle You Described, can go for 550 to 800.00, 800 seems on the high side for the way you described stock, as others said try to negotiate it if you can

I thought the same thing. I mounted a Miller Kodiak and it looked slicker than sh*it. BUT with the scope mounted that low, it was impossible to open the bolt. Do you have a trick that I don't know about? I took the Miller and mounted it on my 22HP. On a 99, it is just fine.

STEPHEN
NO TRICKS, I Only Know WHAT I SAW, AND WAS GONNA DO ONE OF MINE, NEVER KNEW THAT it did not Work for You.! Were was the the bolt interfering at?
STEVE

Lift the bolt normally and it hit the scope. The one I traded to Saddlering at the 2007 fest had a side mounted scope that was actually quite a bit higher than a Miller and that was the reason John didn't care for the gun, because even with that set-up the bolt handle still hit the scope. Not as badly, but it still hit. What I did was wire EDM a one piece mount and rings to move the scope higher yet and I got it to work. When I shoot it, I use a lace on comb pad to lift my heat. Some bend the bolt handle but I didn't want to

Steve-- I didn't have the Miller Kodiak on my 1920; I had it on a Model 45 Super Sporter in 30-30. It worked fine for that. No problems with the bolt handle.

Rod

That's EXACTLY what I figured. Thanks for chiming in.

YA SEE as I Got Older Brain Fart! I was sorta close I knew it was on some bolt gun.

Yup....hate those.....

No problem with the trigger, just familiarize yourself with the two stage systems that were used on military bolt guns like the 1903, 1917 and boatloads of Mausers that were made in the early part of the last century. You need to take up the slack until you feel the sear engagement, or catch point. That's when you do your trigger work. Never fire two stage triggers with one fell swoop of the trigger finger!

EXCEPT WHEN YOU ON A DEER. I PROMISE,,,,,,,,YOU WILL NEVER THINK ABOUT IT!!!!

Well there ya go. It just doesn't matter in the heat of the moment. I think that a lot of the later 99s have very creapey stagey trigger pulls that you can't do much to compensate for, but you don't hear too to many guys complaining about it.

PS - my hunch is that not too many doughboys with 03s gave a damn about fancy trigger techniques either when they had the Bosch screaming own their necks.

True on ALL counts.

I never think about two-stage pulls. I've been shooting them for nigh onto 50 years now and they are like second nature to me. Actually, "normal" single stage triggers give me pause- I have to reacquaint myself with one every time I use it as most of my rifles are either two-stage pulls or have double set triggers. I have to be especially careful when going to a single stage trigger after working with a double-set for I habitually set the rear trigger when I acquire the target without even thinking about it anymore.

As an aside, here's the weirdest trigger you ever saw on a hunting rifle:





It is a double-set trigger on a Krag varmint rifle. You push the front trigger forward to set the rear trigger, which then goes off with but whisper of finger pressure. It works a treat, and the only down side is it must be set to use it unlike most double-sets that allow the front trigger to work "normally" when unset. It was made by Pacific back in the 30's.





3 shots, 100 yards. .22 Maximum Lovell.

Thats one heck of a Krag you've got there! Miller used to make a device that attached to two stage triggers that had an adjusting screw for taking out the first stage "hump" of military triggers. I have one around someplace for a 1917 Enfield. Its a simple little thing that I'm sure would be easy to replicate and adapt to a 1920, though I'm fine with my two stage pull.

The thing about removing the first stage of a two stage pull is you are intruding into the safety aspect of that trigger system. The first stage of the pull eliminates most of the sear engagement and the second stage trips it. On the guns with two-stage pulls that hefty amount of sear engagement is there for a reason: it goes a long way toward accidental discharge.

That is true.

Exactly. I saw a 1920 that some idiot added a set screw to the front of the trigger to take almost ALL of the initial travel out of the 1st stage. Trigger pull was nice, but when you applied the safety to the on position, you just pushed the trigger from behind and the gun would discharge. The safety was completely overridden. I just do NOT understand how a grown man doesn't have the understanding to just leave things alone and deal with them.

The same can be said of women- best to leave things alone and deal with them! Some of them have two-stage pulls, and some of them have hair triggers!

I had a gunsmith once tell me that it was common practice for guys to modify military triggers with set screws in the bracket - you know, the part trigger is pinned to, I just can't think of what its called right now. I also have an 03 trigger around that someone put a set screw in for taking up the first stage slack. I never saw a need to use these things and never had a reason to consider their consequences on the function of two stage systems. Thanks for adding the cautionary caveats.

TOO FUNNY.
But TRUE!

Here's a Stith-mounted scope on a 1920 - as Steve suggested not the most elegant arrangement but then I've seen much worse.

I've found the trigger problem goes away when there is brown fur in the crosshairs.

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Intestine set up, but it would be a bit problematic with a 20/26 given its lack of a dovetail in the barrel. What was the rear mount originally made for?

no idea - that's how it came.

From the looks of the serial number, that IS a 20/26.

I can't see the photo good enough on my phone to make out the front mount. Is it screwed into the barrel?

I got to laugh at my phone's spell check. It made Intestine out of Interesting!

Here's Mine. Ugly as sin.but a tac driver

Definitely a 1920

No, its in the barrel dovetail for the original rear sight

Mostly hair triggers in my experience.

If you want a peek at the nicest 1920 ever made, it is part of Mark Benenson's estate that is being sold at Amoskeag this weekend, 03/28 and 03/29. I didn't write down the lot #, but it is worth looking at if you have even a little interest in the 1920s.

Not a Win 70, looks more Remington.

Jeff is referring to item #255 at the Amosteag auction.

The rear peep sight is something else. Anyone have images of similar English bolt mounted sights?

I was trying to figure that thing out..,and couldn't, how does it work as a sight? There is also a tangent sight mounted on the barrel.



Overall, I guess the gun is alright...in a kind of dicked-with-non-factory way.

The aperture is lowered down out of the way, maybe to allow use of the barrel sights. To raise the aperture you loosen the big knurled knob and lift the aperture stem up. No adjustment for windage. That's accomplished by drifting the front sight. It's a Rigby-style sight. There's a guy out in internetland named Rusty Marlin who makes repros of them.

Cocking knob sights are pretty cool IMO. While they give up a little bit in accuracy over a rock solid sight mount, they are plenty sufficient for hunting. Some custom smiths would grind a notch with corresponding V in the sear engagement to guarantee shot-to-shot return to the exact same position to alleviate some of the slop that bred slight inconsistency in sight location. A lot of work just to put the aperture back as close to the eye as possible, since one can't mount a conventional tang sight on a bolt gun.

That's a neat rifle although I don't particularly care for the butterknife bolt handle treatment, and I like butterknife handles as a rule. What I do find interesting is the lever in front of the safety button. I assume it is a positive locking arrangement to guarantee the safety can't be bumped off safe?

Would a cocking piece sight be any less accurate than the Lyman 54? They both seem prone to any movements or slop in the cocking piece bolt shroud assembly.

Define "accurate".

On my model 1920's bolt does move back and forth sideways a bit,but i didn't try to move it sideways with a loaded round in the chamber.I assume with a chambered round the bolt wouldn't move sideways much at all to affect the bolt peep sight. Don

What Loggah said. Susceptible to movement by the bolt in a way that would not return the sight to the same place from shot to shot. Not like a Lyman 48 screwed to the receiver in which the relationship of the front and rear sights is rigid or always static.

One would think the slop would be very detrimental to accuracy but in practice it doesn't amount to a hhill of beans when it comes to hitting a target out to as far as you can manage with iron sights. Having owned a few rifles down through the ages with bolt sleeve and/or cocking piece sights I can attest to that. I once owned two Mannlicher-Schoenauers, at different times, that had Lyman cocking piece sights in addition to backup sights. One had a Redfield mount & scope the other had express sights on the barrel, and I couldn't tell a lick of difference in target hit-ability when jumping back and forth between them. The couple of 1920s I have messed with, with Lyman 54s, one current and one 20 years ago, display no ill effects either.

If someone wants to pay me the amount of value decrease I would experience by d/t'ing my 1920 and mounting a scope in order to make a comparison test, I'm your huckleberry!

My biggest gripe is the crazy cost of these cocking piece and bolt sleeve (tail block) sights for various pre-war heart throbs.

No matter how much slop can be felt, when the gun is cocked & ready to shoot the spring tension should take all that up and push every thing into the same position every time, the sear is always holding it from the same spot. I would think if it were possible to move the position of the cocking piece while it were cocked it would return almost exactly to it's original position as soon as the force moving it was released. I have some 22's with a lot of play in the cocking piece and if you move them they always look like they go right back to were they were.

...guess I'm gonna scrap that Lyman 54 on my 20/26..piece of junk bolt sight.

Ha ha. Let me know when you take the garbage out next week...

I'll take it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

GOOD GRAB!

Let me add, with all kindness in my heart, "grab this!"

How much will "THAT" cost me?

I wish you guys would dicker over a price offline.

Rod

Dicker - I don't even know her

Realizing that sometimes there's a difference between the theoretical and the pratical, I appreciate your comments on the performance of Lyman 54s and bolt sleeve sights.

I reckon I could do an experiment with my .300, since it came D&T for a sidemount scope, and with a bent bolt handle. I'd have to round up the mount & a suitable scope, and shoot groups. Then swap in the other bolt, with its Lyman 54, and repeat the accuracy tests.

It's up to you what you do, but for me, I would never in a lifetime switch bolts in ANY gun and shoot it.

Or just shoot one gun with the scope and then the other with the 54 as a comparison while using the same ammo in both. That would probably work good enough for the experiment and it doesn't require you to swap out anything.

I checked the headspace before doing so - which I should have mentioned. There was only .002" difference between the two bolts, which is not enough to worry about.

5250.00 Nice Price It Sold For

I was there but had to leave early. I was sitting next to the guy that bought the A2 special. That was a gorgeous rifle. I handled the 1920 that you mentioned. That was the slickest little rifle ever. That cocking piece peep sight was something to behold.

So what's the story on the fancy 1920? Is it a Factory or a privately made custom? And beyond some guy having over 5K to drop on it, what makes it so valuable?

Not factory, reworked in England for some member of the aristocracy, just cool. Like anything, it is worth what someone will pay for it.

And to think, I paid less than $500 for one of Larry Koller's 1920s.

The people I saw bidding on the custom Savages were doing nothing less than drooling. The market might be soft to some people, almost every gun I saw sold, sold for more than the auction estimate. I am heading back over in a couple minutes. The same fellow that bought the A2 bought the 1920. If you REALLY want something,you'll pay the price.

Thanks for the responses.