Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire current gun piddlin' project

I just sent the request...

This is what it was when I bought it.

That looks capable just as it is. And yeah, I'm pretty sure that was made by High Standard.

He wants sights to put slugs in hogs.

These are nice shotguns. I used to buy spare or replacement parts from Numrich.

This guy likes 'em.

https://gunsmagazine.com/shotguns/stevens-520/

👍new springs.
Like the look of the humpback line on the receiver.
Chop it.
Aint no reason why not too.
Refinish that wood with some tru oil to give it a shine with a grain texture on it. Probably really nice old black walnut with some character that can be brought out
Graphite black cerracoat it.
Cost ya maybe 100 125 bucks.
Put it all back together.
Go run some 4 buck thru it.
Clean it .
Stick it beside the bed.

The furniture looks pretty good on this one. One of the reasons I bought this one is because of how it had aged. It's got a finish on it now that nothing but lots of decades can produce.

A cleaning with diluted denatured alcohol and cotton balls might bring out some character.
Test in a small area to look for reaction IE white cloudy.
A good waxing afterwards.

Anything you do to it aint gonna destroy any collector value.
And can be easily done or improved to your needs or vision of it done.
Your gonna use it as a home defense gun anyways.

I bet chopped down to 18.5 - 19" at 15 to 35 ft with 4 buck it will throw a good pattern.
You know what your doing.
You have skills as a machinist.

Nice old pump gun.

Oh,...it has no collector value. Although there's some people out there that scoop these old things up.

The auction house where I found these was liquidating the gun collection of a man who had died,..400 guns. He obviously liked shotguns. I think there was at least six of the 520 variants that got sold. I bought three of them. One 520A I bought is very nice. The 520 in this thread is in very good condition. Another 520A I bought is a bit rough.

I paid $150, $160, and $180 for them.

As mentioned, there's lots of parts for them out there. I'm not sure why. The military scooped up every one that Stevens had in stock when WW2 broke out and I think maybe Stevens ran off a lot of spare parts to sell to the military. Now all the parts are being sold off,...mostly by a gun parts place called "Jack First".

From what I've read, some of the early models went to the trenches of WW1, many went to WW2, and the Military issued a lot of the 520As in combat configuration during the Vietnam War.

I like them because they're a Browning design, they're all forged steel and walnut, parts are available for them and you can pick up a nice example for a little pocket money if you keep an eye out.

They're classy old shotguns that are fun to tinker with.

Looks quite a bit like a Model 12 Winchester ....

New main spring
New ejector
New firing pin
New slide lock spring
New firing pin retaining pin

Cleaned and lubed. I declare this geriatric shotgun ready for another 85 years.

Congrats on resurrecting those old shotguns. They deserve to be shot. That is what they were built for. I see too many of them as wall hangers.

These are unusual because there's still a lot of new old stock parts available for them 85 years after they were made.