Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Savage Collectors Savage 1920/26 project

I’m glad to see the pistol grip cap in the factory drawings. My 20/26 has a pistol grip cap that looks very much like a factory installed item. That is it looks just like the stock work Savage did on the 99s for pistol grip caps. I’ve had some feedback in the past on this forum questioning the originality of this feature on my rifle and now I’m fairly convinced it came that way from the factory. Thanks much for the time and effort you put into this thread.

As cataloged, 20/26s didn't have pistol grip caps.

In total, I've owned around 100 1920s and 20/26s and have yet to see a 20/26 stock with a factory installed pistol grip cap. Close to the end of production, it appears to me that Savage may have put together some 20/26 rifles with a mix of 1920 and 20/26 parts that resulted in non-catalog configurations. I have a late 20/26, #125xx, that is in a non-cataloged configuration. It has a a 24" 20/26 style barrel with an open rear sight mounted to the barrel via a dovetail and the tail block isn't d&t with the hole necessary to install a Lyman #54 peep sight. I "think" that this rifle was made that way in Utica, but Mr. Clark couldn't find anything in the records that would confirm that it was or wasn't.

I have only had a few 20/26s without the stripper clip slot in the receiver bridge, all were higher than SN !2,500, among the last 500 or so produced.

That front sight height difference vexed me with every 1920 I ever owned, all of which I installed 54's on (or made facsimiles thereof).

My 5 model 20's all have a pistol grip caps,my 2 model 20-26 have no grip caps. My late 20-26 ,s/n 13,200 has no stripper clip cutout. Don

Serial number 13,200 must be among the very final 20/26s made.

My 20/26 no longer has the original cap but the inletting and shaping of the pistol grip looks very factory to me. My serial number is in the 11XXX range.

Are the caps identical to the 99?

Very Interesting Gene
I've just got back from the South Island
Picked up my fathers IH TD 5 Series B to restore
& Shot 1 deer saw others but quicker than me and 14 pigs to quick too
The only problem I ran into with the 1920 & 1920/26 stocks was that the Forewood Screws Are different lengths
Any Idea what thread they are?
Cheers

if you notice the part number, that starts with "99", my guess would be they are the same

I went out and checked my 1899 250-3000's and early "G" rifles and the grip caps appear to be identical to the model 1920 caps. Don

Whoa whoa whoa, I've always thought the last 20/26 made was 13006? You sure about that serial number Don?

That was my hunch. So it seems some 1920s or 20/26s had full pistol grip stocks with caps and not semi pistol grips like perhaps most had.

Joe, I'll have to go and double check,i might have the number mixed up!! yup wrong gun,my s/n is 12,868 . Don

1920s were always cataloged with a pistol grip cap, while 20/26s were always cataloged without a pistol grip cap.

There is a picture in Frank DeHaas' book that shows a very late 20/26 barreled action in a 1920 stock. Your can tell that it is a very late 20/26 because in has a front sight with a dovetailed bead, rather than the pinned blade.

Some 20/26s may have come from the factory with capped pistol grips, but they were never cataloged that way and may have been a special order or a rifle assembled from leftover parts.

If I run across a Savage in a non-cataloged configuration that is claimed to be in original factory specs, I am a disbeliever unless the owner has a factory letter confirming that it is original factory and not a parts gun. My 20/26 with open sights and no provision for mounting a Lyman #54 is an example of that. It looks right and who would go to the extra effort of replacing the tail block, but it is what it is and as noted previously, Mr. Clark was unable to find any documentation that would account for it being a factory built non-standard configuration.

PS - No disrespect intended, I'm just a stickler for documentation on Savages in non-cataloged configurations. The is a lot of bad information floating around the internet that people assume is accurate because the person posting it has credibility. Layne Simpson once wrote a piece on the 1920 that showed it having a front sling eye attached via a barrel band like on some 340s, even though the 1920 was never cataloged in that configuration and a barrel band sling eye was not a factory option.

No disrespect taken. I can send you pictures of my rifle with some detail shots of the pistol grip. Like I said, I don't have the cap but the shaping of the grip and the surrounding stock look very factory to me. Of course that could have been done by anyone with good stock making skills too. Maybe I should write Savage for a letter - how are they with that service these days?

The rifle pictured is around 12700, so less than 200 lower than yours and doesn't have the stripper clip cut as shown in one a couple pictures (not my gun so I don't want to give out to much of the number).

They are #8-40's, I used one from a Brownell's screw kit, they are 1" long and threaded full length. I had to reduce the size of the head in diameter and thickness (so it wouldn't stick out of the escutcheon) but I did not have to shorten it, but I wasn't using the correct barrel mount, the factory one would use a shorter screw.

Gene, I went out checked my other 20-26 s/n 11,204 that one has the stripper clip guide! so somewhere in between they changed. Again great post on the model 20's and 20-26's. As a side note my brother broke a firing pin in his model 20 a few years back and i made one from a Remington model 700 firing pin.Don

I wonder how many 1920 owners realize that those stripper clip slots were designed for use with 1903 Springfield stripper clips. Back when I hunted with a 1920 I carried it with five rounds in the gun and a stripper clip with five spares in my pocket. Late issue NATO stripper clips (intended for 7.62mm NATO use) don't work, it has to be the old brass (or WWII issue steel) '03 clips. (Side note: the later NATO clips do work for Remington "pogo stick" 8/81 autoloaders. Don't even bother trying to make a Mauser clip work with anything but Mausers. The '03 clips work to re-charge Johnson magazines too. C'mon, one of you guys has to own one of them!)

Enjoyed the thread, I got into a 1920 model in 250-3000 pretty decent price wise. It had some issues, the safety spring didn't keep enough tension, the stock wasn't serial numbered the same as the gun, with full throttle 87 gr loads it shot 8" low at 50 yards. The barrel irons appeared to be all original and finding a Lyman peep like you posted looked like an expensive propostion. Didn't want to modify the irons to get it to zero. I resold it instead. Got into a M110 WLE in 300 Sav. right, no where near as classy as that 20 but a solid shooter for whitetails. You've done great work on yours, best of luck. MB

Gary, i probably got hundreds of 03 stripper clips,had 4 cases of 1944 ammo just never tried any in a model 20 ,20-26.Don