I also have a stevens 425 in 30 remington, serial #1080 mine was sticky opening the lever, like it was stuck. Holding the lever to the right while opening, it worked smoothly, but putting pressure to the left when opening, it would not open. Being right handed, naturaly putting pressure to the left, it is hard to open the lever. Grr. So i took the thing apart to see if something obvious was binding. I saw some grit and crud, so cleaned it and oiled all parts. Getting all the parts back in went fairly smooth, until that dreaded hammer spring. I was about to give up when i thought of a ratchet tie down as a tool to compress the spring. I made a loop with braided fishing line, doubled over a dozen times, then hooked one end of the tie down in that loop, the other end in the barrel. The other end of the loop went in the fork of that piece that hooks on the stop screw. I had to clamp wood on the sides of the lower tang and a shim to keep the spring aligned. The used the rachet to compress until it went into place. Yahoo
