Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Savage Collectors Savage 1904 rifle

I just stumbled upon a Savage 1904 rifle. The barrel serial number doesn't match the stock but it's still a cool little thing. It looks like someone has painted over the blueing so I'm going to try and strip it and see how it comes out.

The biggest issue is that the handle is broken off the bolt. I'll have to see if I can find something that will work or maybe create one from scratch. It certainly looks like it will be worth spending a bit of time on.

If I recall, I have a complete bolt for the 1904/5, I'll dig it up

I see your in Canada, so getting parts to you from the USA could be a problem. The 1904 & 1905 had very weak actions, shooting modern higher power ammunition should be avoided, standard velocity or lighter only. The last year or so the Model 1904's was manufactured was after HI-Speed 22 Ammunition became available and the last ones were stamped "REGULAR CARTRIDGE" below the caliber stamp.

I've seen a lot of bolts with repaired, replaced or missing bolt handles and a few guns with cracked receivers at the bottom rear of the locking notch. I think the handles are just pressed in and there is not a lot of metal holding them.

Thank you very much, that's a good bit of information.

I only wish mine looked as good as yours. The bolt might be repairable but I would have to turn and bend a new handle. I have a friend that is an exceptional TIG welder and he could definitely handle welding something on.

Now you've got my attention! The only hurdle might be that I'm in Canada and your folks in government don't like gun parts leaving the country. I'm not sure about a 110 year old bolt out of a .22 but I'll look into it.

Numrichs ships to Canada but they don't have any of the parts you need in stock right now anyways.

I thought I might be some help thinking I had a handle on an old model 1905 stock I had in the rafters but I must have already gotten rid of it, stock was there but no handle. Same with a spare bolt I had in my box. I really need to do inventory on my parts boxes one of these days.

I bought a 1904 Savage for $50 + $5 tax at a pawn shop 4 years ago.

Here are my notes:

My new $2 Savage 1904 extractor spring arrived.
So I took the extractor out.


You might think I would take something apart before ordering parts, but that would be wrong. Then something would be taken apart, and I would forget all about it. That is how basket cases are born.

The rifle was not extracting. The extractor was not springing into position to grab cases. The hook on the extracto looked good., so I was fairly sure that extract spring was stuck, broken, or weak.

The new spring was much the same as the old spring:

The old extractor spring coil diameter is 0.103"
The new extractor spring coil diameter is 0.105"
The old extractor spring wire diameter is 0.023"
The new extractor spring wire diameter is 0.025"
The old extractor spring has 5 coils
The new extractor spring has 5.5 coils
The new extractor spring relaxed length is longer, but that does not matter.


The extractor pin is 0.0.47"
The hole in the bolt is 0.062"
The hole in the extractor is 0.060"
The extractor is not held in by an interference fit pin.
It can be removed with fingernails.

The extractor is 0.063" thick.
The extractor slot in the bolt is 0.067"
The parrot beak of the extractor is peened on the edge to 0.072"

I tried swaging a nail down to be a smaller diameter to be a new pin.
Then I tried sandpaper on a nail in the lathe.
Then I tried a file on a nail in the lathe.
I could not get my new pin to go in.

I could not even get the original parts to back together.

I put the extractor in the vise and squeezed the parrot head down to 0.067".
Then the original parts went together.
Now the extractor works, with the original extractor spring.

I think I'll end up turning my own handle and bending over. For anyone that has one of these little rifles, could I get you to measure the width across the flats of the handle where it meets the bolt? I just need to know how wide it's supposed to be so I can machine mine similarly. I'll leave the flat on the back side a bit wide so I can peel it down bit by bit to ensure I get the head space correct.

The bolts are a little more complicated than I had realized, dimensions for radiuses are close but the base is not symmetrical and the larger radius is only partway around leaving the bottom rear corner farther out. I'm also not sure if the dimensions of the locking lug are centered on the hole in the bolt, the flats line up with the edges of the milled flat on the bolt body.