I recently picked up a Stevens 425 and took it down to bare parts to clean and fix it. While I had it apart I figured I would snap some photos of the internals if anyone wanted them. Except for the axle spring they use for a hammer spring the rifle resembled a Marlin pretty closely. One of the parts that needed work on mine was the loading gate which was staked in place and the staking was loose, binding on the bolt. Was everyone else staked or riveted on? I took my time and cleaned up the old post and using a punch and a steel backer staked/riveted it back in place. She's running like a champ now. Hope this helps someone. Sorry, some of the photos are of parts prior to cleaning them, my photographer (mama) was only available midway through the clean up.

[img]http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y48/cpl9838/IMAG0942.jpg[/img]

Good new to me information. Thanks.

I was asked in a PM to describe the basic takedown procedure that I did to take mine apart.

1.Take Buttstock off, single screw on tang.

2.Hammer Spring is exposed and has a yoke that rests in groove of a stop screw on the lower tang. This thing sucks to get off. There is a groove for a screwdriver to push it down, but I couldn't get enough into it. The spring will not shoot anything across the room, it just doesn't compress easily. Once this is off it's even funner getting it back on again. I am not a fan of pliers for any gun work, but in this case I locked onto the yoke piece with a set of vise grips that have jaws that open up to encircle the stop screw. By putting the barrel down on a piece of carpeting I was finally able to get enough leverage to push down and lift the yoke past the stop screw. I do not recommend or even keep pliers on my bench, but had to in this case.

3. Remove Hammer Pivot Screw and then remove hammer out the top.

4. Remove Lever pivot screw and remove lever with attached carrier bar.

5. Remove screw on the bottom of receiver towards the front. This attaches the lower tang, then remove the left side screw which is also holds the lower tang. Tang can be removed by sliding back 1/16th and remove upwards.

6. Carrier can be removed

7. Unless the staking or riveted loading gate has to be fixed don't remove it. You can wiggle the bolt and the little slider fixture out past it, without taking it out.

To do this the bolt is slid back until the nose can just pass the edge of the loading gate then pull up on the attached slider piece. The slider piece runs up and down in a groove and will be obvious when you take the gun apart. wiggle and pull up and the two will come out as a unit, but are not attached, so don't drop them. This allows you access to clean the inside of the receiver.

8. There is a picture where I am using a Q-tip to point to a hole. The 2nd piece of the firing pin is held in place by that screw. Remove the screw and the pin comes out the back with spring. It can only go back in one way as the screw is offset to one side of the pin.

9. Restaking or removing the loading gate. As stated mine was loose so was binding on the bolt. I punched the the pin out from the outside and then cleaned up the pin that was remaining. By resting it on the side of my anvil and tapping lightly all the way around I was able to "Draw" the metal back out into the same diameter of the pin. Once this was done I took a tight fitting block of steel to act as a backer for the pin, inside the receiver. By using a punch and working lightly and tapping around the face of the pin, it riveted the pin back into place. I kept at it until the loading gate spring was flush inside its groove and would no longer bind the bolt as it moved down into it's open position. This is the same technique I was taught for riveting ejector springs into place for Remington 870's.

Hope this is helpful

Ryan, thanks for posting this. I have a rough one (my second) that needs some work - the only thing I had been informed of about these before was how difficult it was to get the hammer spring back in, which you confirmed.

Mine is either missing the arm that cocks the hammer, or it is broken. It also is missing the little flipper piece on the inside of the loading gate - so your instructions there will be a lot of help, hopefully I can find a way to fix that without taking the loading gate completely off - but it doesn't look like it, I think I will at least have to take out the hammer & lower tang.

Gene, as best as I could tell the flipper piece was riveted in place too. There is no obvious attachment piece other then the post that it's attached too. The lever that cocks the hammer looks pretty stout if it's still there I would think someone good with a welder could tig it back up or straighten it if it's bent.

I am hopeful that I never have to take that hammer spring out again, in my lifetime. I am sure someone has a trick to get it in or out. Maybe an arbor press set up to depress is while someone holds the rifle upright underneath it?

thanks for the info , still waiting to get my first 425.

norm

Wow, nice find. Stevens couldn't have made too many of these and finding one would have to be like finding a needle in a hundred hay stacks. Kind of reminds you of a Marlin, which also have a soft spot in my heart.

A friend of mine just bought one and the bolt would bind up. The rivet needed to be restaked. Now all we have to do is replace the spring.

That was happening with mine as well. Retaking and smoothing it out did the trick. Good luck. Ryan

I also have a stevens 425 in 30 remington, serial #1080 mine was sticky opening the lever, like it was stuck. Holding the lever to the right while opening, it worked smoothly, but putting pressure to the left when opening, it would not open. Being right handed, naturaly putting pressure to the left, it is hard to open the lever. Grr. So i took the thing apart to see if something obvious was binding. I saw some grit and crud, so cleaned it and oiled all parts. Getting all the parts back in went fairly smooth, until that dreaded hammer spring. I was about to give up when i thought of a ratchet tie down as a tool to compress the spring. I made a loop with braided fishing line, doubled over a dozen times, then hooked one end of the tie down in that loop, the other end in the barrel. The other end of the loop went in the fork of that piece that hooks on the stop screw. I had to clamp wood on the sides of the lower tang and a shim to keep the spring aligned. The used the rachet to compress until it went into place. Yahoo

Sorry that was a long winded response, but it did work, after getting enough wraps on the braided fishing line, so it didnt break. I thought about making the loop out of wire, but how to get the wire off? Cutting the braid was easy to remove. Maybe i should have left it in there for next time?

Does anybody know what size the tang peep sight and the receiver scope mount screws are on the stevens 425?

I doubt that Stevens 425s were ever factory d&t for scope mounts based on the era that it was made.

I don't recall seeing a Lyman or Marble's tang peep sight cataloged for the Stevens 425, but assume that those made for he Marlin 1893 would have the same footprint.

Their catalog shows a telescopic scope mounted on top, and all 4 of the stevens 425 that i own are drilled and tapped on top of the receiver and drilled and tapped on the tang. I have seen them with a tang mounted peep. I believe you are correct about the footprint matching other tang mounted peeps. I removed the plug screws, but i can not determine what size they are. Close to 8-40? I was hoping somebody has been down this road and knows the size.

The Stevens 425's and the Visible Loaders used a very narrow hole pattern for the peep sights, much narrower than the Stevens standard of 1.5", under 1". These were both designed by Edward Redfield, I do not know why his designs had the odd spacing. The 425's used a sloppy #8-40, the plug screws on one of mine measure a few thousands more than a standard #8. I tried a #8-36 but that is not correct, it starts but binds up. The Visible Loaders use a #5-44 with a large head the same diameter as #8 screws.

Lyman, Marble's and even Watson made tang sights for these. They must have made more than there are guns since they often are found 'new in the box'.

They are all drilled & tapped with two holes on the top of the receiver for a scope mount. Stevens had a special scope & mount for these that used a solid mount, the first listing describe it with internal vertical adjustment only, later as also having internal horizontal. The scope was only listed a couple years with some later catalogs having it over stampede as 'DISCONTINUED'. This is the only model scope Stevens made with internal adjustment. The scope has a long eye relief and mounts with the eye piece about even with the front of the hammer. The front mount uses the barrel sight dovetail.

Some tang sights - topics/16348596

Are those #5-44 screws hard to find? The 8-40 was quite sloppy. I dont know if this is possible, but considering mounting a flat based picatiny base, weaver rings and an old weaver 4x scope.

Jim, I have a tang sight on one of my rifles,and another new in the box. I'll look and see what the number on the sight is.I have never checked the screw size. I know the rifle action is not that rugged someone had used some hotter reloads in one ,and Ed Lander the old local gunsmith had to fix it. Don

The Lyman tang sight has HP stamped on the bottom.

Is there a part number? Maybe you want to sell your extra one?

Well i really dont have a "extra one" since i have seven rifles! there is no part number just HP. Don

The Marbles sights for these are marked V7, these have the same base as the V6 for the Visible Loaders but the V6's are about 3/8" taller. Measuring (2) V6'S, (2) V7's and (1) Lyman HP I come up with a hole spacing of 13/16", but the actual measurements varied from slightly under at 0.808 to right on at 0.812. I do not think this spacing is used on anything else. The clearance holes are the same on both the Marble's and are oversized even for the #8 screws at 0.193", so they position off the head of the screw making the correct size important. Standard screw diameters are; #5's - 0.125" and #8's - 0.164" with the oddball for the 425's about 0.168" measuring two original plug screws over the threads which usually runs slightly under the specified diameter.

The Lyman HP is the best one to get, it has the post centered between the mounting screw so it sits farther forward allowing a comfortable thumb position and allows the post to be much shorter. The designs of the Marble's and Watson do not allow for that narrow of hole spacing putting the sight in back of the holes.

The #5 screws for the Visible Loaders are the same size as most other Steven's except the 425's and there are several places that sell them, I think Apertures 'N' More is the cheapest - aperturesnmore The ones I bought have rounded heads that measure 0.251" and have very thin slots, 0.250" seems to be the standard on most tang sights and most tang sights also have oversized clearance holes so they position off the head diameter. For #8's I've found the lower price screws you get today, like in the Brownell's kits or the ones offered or ACE Hardware, have flat heads that run about 0.240" with very wide slots that do not look 'vintage', the heads have a slight bevel so they still center in the holes. The screws in the Pachmayr kits are better with thin slots and rounded heads, but still they run a little under at about 0.245" and they do not seem to sell them other than in complete 277 piece kits which contain more #6-48's than #8-40's.

That is the measurement i got also .168 for the stevens 425 screws. I wonder where a person would find such a screw? I tried the #8-40 screws and they were indeed too sloppy to tighten properly. Scratch my head now.

I think you will be OK with the standard #8-40's even thought they are a little loose, I tried a few and tightened them as hard as I would in anything else without a problem.

Top are a couple of the ones from a Pachmayr kit, you can see the heads are slightly smaller than the hole -

The front one here is from Brownell's, it's even smaller with a head diameter of 0.240", I think some of the newer ones you get have a totally flat top. The rear screw is a #5-44 for Visible Loaders just loose in the hole to show a screw with the correct head size, I believe it is one I got from Apertures & More, the head diameter is 0.251".

I have three 435's and two needed work, I got frustrated while removing and replacing the hammer springs and took the time to make a spring compressor from some scrap steel I had laying around. The plan was to keep it very simple but it got more complicated as I kept trying to get it to work. Hammer springs are very easy to remove now so I no longer dread working on these.

How ingenious is that. Thanks for the pictures of that handy tool.

Brownells has 6-48 screws that are oversized. They even sell an oversize tap.

I couldn't find them in 8-40 at Brownells but maybe they do exist. Worth some more searching I would say.

The 8-40 screws i got from brownells were way too sloppy in the screw holes and would not tighten. I was afraid i would bugger up the hole threads?

I think those are the same as some I tried, they were sloppy but I got them tight without stripping out the hole. Brownells' also sell unthreaded screw blank if you want to try and make your own - if you bought a split adjustable die you could get them a little over size, I don't think it would take much.
drillsandcutters.com/8-40
brownells.com/blank-screw-kit

You will have to chuck them in a drill or lathe and file an angle on the bottom of the heads. To keep from damaging the head when threading, hold them only by the shaft, once the die is started clamp on the threaded end. They're long enough you can thin them a ways to help the die start only leaving a short amount to have full threads. This will not give you deeper engagement but will make the thread thicker and stronger where they do contact.

I will be fishing with a gunsmith tomorrow. I will run that by him to see if he has the stuff to do that. I know he has a stevens 425 in 30 remington