Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Savage Collectors Nice 1920 sold on gunbroker today

Very nice, LBK! I've got a few, couple nice ones and a couple shooters.

Thank you.

That is indeed the rifle that I purchased at auction, once in a while I come across something like that one.

Thanks for parting with it. I appreciate it,

I'd like to try one of these someday, hopefully a .300. Given that they function as a bolt stop, how are the triggers?

The triggers are reminessent to the 2 stage military triggers. Many home grown gunsmiths try to "fix" them and do nothing but make matters worse. A trigger is a trigger. I like the ones I have and luckily only one has been dicked with,

The triggers suck.

There was a Michigan 'smith named Bob Snapp who would install a Winchester 70 style bolt release on a 1920. I think that Mark Benenson had one done. I looked into it and decided that the cost exceeded the value and usefulness that I would get out of it, so I passed.

My now deceased 'smith installed a Timney for a Mauser on a 1920 for me, just for something interesting to do. It required quite a bit of work and, again, the cost would have exceeded the value if I had had to pay for the work. It was a really abused 1920, so no real value at the time, the action was the only useful part, the rest being rusted or busted. He made it into a varmint rifle with a heavy Savage barrel in 22-250 that he modified to fit the receiver. He made the stock out of a piece of screw bean mesquite that he bought from some guy in Arizona. When he passed, I gave that rifle to his son.

Those are the exact same 3 words I would have used to answer that question.

It's obvious y'all don't spend any time with '03 Springfields, Krags, M1's, etc. The M1920 trigger is no worse (and no better) than any of them. You get used to them, and then learn to love them.

I just shoot the gun, really don’t give a lot of thought to the trigger

One of my earliest M1920 has a very satisfactory 2 stage trigger and shoots just over 1 3/8 groups with a Lyman 54 sight, frequently placing two shots a half an inch apart.

My current M1908 custom Mauser has double set triggers and feels quite pleasant to shoot. Has anyone thought to install a double set trigger in a M1920?

True.

The 1920 and 20/26 triggers are comparable to the other bolt action centerfire rifles of that era. Remington 30s, Winchester 54s, and Savage 40/45 Super Sporters weren't any better.

The standards/expectations in 2023 and quite different from what they were in 1923.

You might learn to love them, but I doubt that I'll ever get there. Accept them for what they are and act accordingly.

Yeah, we moderns forgot why the 2-stage trigger existed in the first place. Moving around in The Great Outdoors (or a battlefield) can be a risky venture, and the 2-stage trigger was designed to mitigate accidental discharges. Instead of a typical sear engagement wherein the parts are clinging together by the skin of their teeth, held back by a safety, the old 2-stager had an enormous amount of sear bite (also backed up by a safety). The exasperating long first stage of the pull was engineered, through leverage, to defeat almost all of that generous sear engagement leaving things now clinging by the skin of their teeth. The final stage of the pull then tripped it over the edge.

One accustomed to such a trigger simply takes up the first stage as the target is acquired, then knuckles down and performs the final let-off as the sight picture coalesces. Unless of course you're in a scared sh*tless situation on a battlefield (or a neophyte hunter) and you just yank the SOB in one fell swoop.

I think Savage designed the 99's sear engagement to be a little overly generous, entailing a generally long tedious trigger pull for much the same reasons I stated above, as a way to provide a safe sear engagement for rugged use. Incorporating a 2-stage pull to take up most of the engagement and provide a short crisp final pull for accurate shooting would've meant an even more Rube Goldberg design than what Art gave us. A much simpler task when done in a bolt gun, like the 1920, than in a lever gun with a remote control trigger like the 99's.

It never ceases to amaze me that the youngsters and gun scribes that cannot abide a 2 stage, flocked to the Savage accutrigger by the thousands, singing it's praises....when in fact, it is a 2 stage trigger with more moving parts.

"Accidental" firing is why Bearrr264 banned exposed hammer lever actions and anything with a DST from his hunts. If you brought one, he wouldn't let you use it, safety first.

Thanks for all the trigger discussion fellas. I grew up shooting milsurps so two stage triggers are no issue. Two stage triggers that suck, still suck. For the money these things bring this news is less than motivating. I reckon I should get one in hand before I go off and gunbroker it. Seeing as how Southeast Alaska isn't exactly overrun with fine vintage arms, this could take awhile.

two stage triggers don't bother me in the least, probably because I shot thousands of rounds through an M1 Garand while stationed in Guantanamo Bay. If you shoot enough different types of guns enough times you learn to adjust to the particular trigger.

EXACTLY

Everybody sees things based on their personal experiences.

There is quite a bit of inaccurate information on the 1920s floating around because the people who published their experiences actually had very little experience with them, often a very small sample size of only one or two different rifles. Layne Simpson published an article some years back that was about 50% accurate and Frank DeHaas had a similar degree of error in his chapter on the 1920s in his book on bolt action rifles. My point is that you can't assume that the guy writing the article is as well versed as his name recognition might suggest and that a random sample size of less than 30 isn't statistically significant to be representative of the thing being assessed.

They are neat little rifles, particularly the 1920s in 250-3000, and are as fun to shoot as any rifle. Probably not the rifle you would ever consider if sub-MOA accuracy is your goal, but they aren't bad for what they are.

Or as least that has been my personal experience with several dozen different 1920s and 20/26s.