Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Savage Collectors Savage 420/430 Barrel Question

No it's not bad. My dad used it on his guns for decades and they were spotless.

The only thing I ever heard about WD40 was years ago from a chemical cleaner salesman. He said the stuff was originally concocted for use as an industrial solvent and that it works great for cleaning road tar off your car. I don't know about the former but he was spot on with the latter. I've used it for displacing water when cleaning up black powder firearms. It does work as a penetrant but I've come across other products that work better.

On a somewhat related topic I've found that ArmorAll makes a great fly line dressing and flotant for dry flies!

After our 10-day waiting period I picked up my 420 today and I think I'm smitten. Its in darn nice shape. I've never had an over/under so the format is a bit new to me. Actually, I've been a one gun shotgunner and that's been with an old Remington Model 11. I also like the old square back Browning and need to find a decent Savage 720, or one of its variants. It has double triggers and an automatic ejector. Its my understanding that they all didn't have these features. Its also chunk but it seems to come up good with the aftermarket butt stock - which appears to be anicer design than the factory issue. I'll put up some pictures as soon as I teach myself how.

I took the plunge (well at least into the shallow end of the pool) and bought the 20 guage barrel. It was advertised as 26-inches long. "in the white", and with extractors. So we, or I, will see if it fits my 16 guage frame.

Let me know if you still want to swap some measurements.

Good show Jeff. At last, someone willing to put paid to this account. Keep us (or at least me) posted on this project.

Holy crap, I just stumbled onto this. 2 year old thread!

I'm guessing we never did come to a conclusion. Wanna continue?

I did come to a conclusion. I have a 16-gauge 420 and acquired a nice set of 20-gauge barrels and forearm. The frame on the 16-gauge appears wider than the 20-gauge frame. When I put the 20-guage barrels on the 16-gauge frame they fit but there is a noticeable gap between the inside walls of the frame and the sides of the barrels. The 20-gauge forearm fits on the 16-gauge frame.

Crazy you dusting this thread off as I just bought a decent 420 in 20-gauge off GB. It should be at my FFL in a couple days and soon I'll have that gun for making comparisons. At present I don't have a 12-guage to compare anything against but I'm looking

So here are my thoughts.

1. Savage made the frame sizes of all three gauges the same but they removed different thicknesses of metal from the inside walls of the frames to accommodate the different widths of barrels (12, 16 and 20-gauges).
2. Savage made three different widths (or sizes) of frames to accommodate the different widths of 12, 16 and 20-gauge barrels.
3. Savage made the 12 and 16-gauge frames the same size but removed metal from the inside walls as discussed above to accommodate for the different widths of the 12 and 16-gauge barrels.

Seems to me you once mentioned you had a 420/430 or two. Put up the frame specs and we'll make some comparisons. Thanks for dusting this thread off.

Ya, own a 430 in 20 ga.

So from what I gather if I had a 12 ga the 20 ga barrels are going to have even a bigger gap than the 16 that you own.

It's kind of a win/lose situation. They will fit but they have a gap on the inside of the frame.

I'll measure up the 20 ga in a bit, just having my morning cup of joe.

That’s pretty much how I see it. The barrels seem to mate with the breech (though there may be internal differences I haven’t accounted for) but we’re still left with a gap between the inside width of the frame and outside width of the barrels. I guess an enterprising person could make an adaptor to fill in the gap if Savage used the same external dimensions for the 12,16 and 20-gauge frames and you stuck with the 12-gauge forearm. I will have a 20-gauge 420 by the end of the month to compare with my 16 and I can post the results.

PS - I’m sure that you, like me, have found it difficult researching these guns but I did come across one account that stated the 12 and 16 gauge guns were built on the larger frame. So it remains to be seen if that is true and if the 20-gauge represents a smaller package.

I gave the only 420 I ever owned (a 20 gauge) to my nephew so I have none to examine. I can picture this gap y'all are talking about, but I'm not sure I understand if it effects lockup of smaller barrels in a larger frame. Is there side to side movement with the smaller "orphan" barrels or do they lock up tight in all directions?

The frame is milled out wider in front of the breech to accommodate the width of the barrels. Different gauge barrels have different widths, increasing in diameter with gauge. Hence a 12-guage barrel will not fit into a 20-gauge frame but, conversely, a 20-gauge barrel will drop into a 12-gauge frame - you just end up with a big gap between the OD of the barrels and the ID of the frame. I am assuming that the ID of the frame assists in supporting the barrels in lock up. This likely creates an unsafe situation in lateral movement and makes using the 420/430 shotgun as a switch barrel gun problematical. What I don't know is if Savage used the (largest) 12-guage frame on all three gauges and just left more meat on the inside to accommodate smaller gauge barrels. This would suck on a 20-gauge gun as it would burden it with an excessively oversized frame. But, I will be able to better address this topic when my 20-gauge shows up in a few days.

P H O T O S

Sure. I'll post photos of both shotguns and the barrel issue as soon as I take possession of the 20-gauge. By the way, that 20-gauge should go nicely with the early EG you sold me. I'll be picking them up at my FFL at the same time. I'm kind of thinking that day will be something like Christmas in January!

I did the paperwork on my 20-gauge tonight and it is a smaller gun all the way around than my 16. So it remains to be determined if the 12 is a larger gun than the 16 or if the two gauges share the same size frames. I’ll be able to make a better comparison on the 16 and 20 in 10-days.

Hmmm....so your saying a 12 ga may be your next buy?

Crap no! I said crap no, no, no. Now what do the say about famous last words? I don't know how things are up in Canada, but the Savage 420/430 is hardly ever seen out here. I was surprised when I found my 16-gauge in Sacramento. That was the first in nearly 20-years of looking. The 20-gauge was a GB buy that came out of Georgia. But, if the 12 is as much bigger than the 16 as that gun is over the 20, then the 12 must be one hefty double. The 20-guage 420 felt nice, at least as nice as a shotgun can feel in the confines of a gun shop.

I picked up the 20-gauge last night and my initial observation was that the 16-gauge is dimensionally larger. I have an extra set of 20-gauge barrels in excellent condition and they fit but were not as snug to the sides of the frame. My hunch is the difference between the two barrel sets just reflects the range of tolerances you got back in day of hand fitting components of firearms. For those interested I’ll make more comparisons later in the week.

430 in 20 ga.