Over the years I have owned several different Savage 24 guns. The first one I used for squirrel and rabbit hunting was not mine, but belonged to a good friend's mother. I was about 14 at the time and had a single barrel Winchester Model 37 .410 and she knew I liked that little Stevens 22/.410 gun, so whenever I was there to pick up my hunting buddy, she always let me use her combination gun. Savage later bought Stevens and the name on those combo guns changed to Savage.
But that first introduction to and use of a combination gun hooked me for life, although it was much later before I actually owned one. My wife and I never had children, but I do have three nephews and when they got big enough to hunt, I remembered how well that little combination gun served me, so I bought each one of them a Savage 24 22/.410 as they started hunting.
The first couple of them I bought had the barrels soldered together and were always consistently accurate like the first one I used. Then Savage started making them with the barrels separated and although they would shoot straight, I noticed that they just did not seem to be as consistent in their accuracy as those with the barrels soldered. That consistent level of accuracy becomes important when you are aiming at a squirrel's head 80 feet up in a tall pine.
I was always certain that if I held it on him, he was a dead squirrel. The guns with the barrels separated would sometimes hit the squirrel and sometimes it would not. Now my nephews did not at the time have the skills necessary to be able to notice that, but I sure did.
So I ordered a couple of the Savage 24 end pieces that held the barrels together, and started trying to "IMPROVE" the accuracy. I opened them up and tried various plastics and brass shims. The gun would drive tacks until the weather changed, and then it would shift the bullet impact point. I finally put the original end cap back on the gun after deciding my gun smithing was not any improvement.
Then I started looking for only those Savage 24's that had the soldered barrels thinking I ought to get a couple of them because they shot more consistently and didn't change with the temperature or weather. About the time I had enough brains to do that, I discovered that Savage had quit making the gun and the prices had gone up and the availability had gone down and they were hard to find. That is what happens when you are working all the time and not paying attention.
But I have a favorite one with the welded barrels chambered for 3 inch 20 gage/.22WMR that I use for squirrels and on occasion, turkeys. It is deadly and consistently accurate and always has been, just like every one with soldered barrels I ever had a chance to shoot. I prowl the pawn shops on occasion looking for them, but the word has been out a long time and finding one is rare. When I have asked the shop owners about them, they smile and say "if those guns are in good condition when they come in here, they go in MY gun safe, not yours."
It has been a lesson to me how a cheap, boys rifle that we once could buy at any Sears & Roebuck, Western Auto, Auto-Lec, or Montgomery Ward store and many local hardware stores for under a hundred dollars has become an object to collect. Those guns were and are cheap, but as soon as Savage quit making them, the collectors all got dollar signs in their eyes and bought them up. They are not going to use them and they are preventing those of us who would use them from doing that.
There are better combo guns out there. Let me restate that. There are guns made and finished much nicer than a Savage 24 available from various makers and I have one or two of them, but there isn't a BETTER combination gun out there. It is a shame they are not more available so that more boys can have the opportunity to enjoy learning how to become a good hunter while using one. I know there are substitutes available, but to me, NOTHINGis as useful, or gives a hunter more options than a combination gun. Until I started using one, I was always torn as to whether I should take my 22 rifle or my .410 shotgun. The Savage 24 made that an easy decision and it irritates me that boys don't have that opportunity today.
I tell you fellas, things have gone down hill since Elvis died.
