I'm finding researching the circa-late 30s to early 40s Savage 420/430 series of over/under shotguns to be a tough job, but one thing I think I've found to be true is that the receivers were all the same size regardless of the gauge. If this is the case, then could you fit a set of 20-gauge barrels to a 12-gauge frame to make a switch barrel scatter gun? Thanks much and I appreciate all input.

Numrich has 12, 16, and 20 gauge barrels for $66, in the white and unfitted. That's cheap enough to by a set and report back on your findings!

You could be the only guy on your block with a Savage 420 three gauge set.

I think I've asked this question before, wanted a switch barrel set for my 430 in 20 ga but never came to a conclusion.

Would be nice to know.

Thanks, I really like idea of being the first guy on the block! So is it safe to assume that the receivers are all the same size for all three gauges?

How do you like your 20-guage? It would be great hearing your opinion.

I love my 20 ga, great bird gun up here.

Do you have one in 12 ga? A few measurements of both our guns and we'll get alot closer to knowing the answer!

I don't have one, but a 20-gauge has been on my want list for some time now.

I liked my 420 20 gauge mainly because of its two triggers, something not found on many O/U's. I didn't like its balance and "clanky" feel when closing it. It was my Pop's, so I gave it to a nephew.

The Marlin 90 O/U also had the double triggers. Intriguing to me, but it also looks clunky.

So I decided to take Mr. gnoahhh up on his challenge. I found a decent 420 last weekend and put down four Franklins. That may have been a bit pricey but the metal is immaculate and I have been looking for one of these shotguns for a very long time. It’s a 420 in 16-guage, which makes me wish it was either a 20 or a 12. But you just don’t find these guns out here. The down side is that the previous owner did an okay job of checkering the fore stock and put on an aftermarket butt stock. The butt stock is a nicely shaped and fitted piece of figured walnut so it just might stay. The next thing I might be asking is how to metal prep and blue the barrels as Gun Parts sells them in the “white.”

PS - I’d try to put up some pictures but we have a 10-day waiting period out here.

Under the circumstances, I'd ask Numrich's your question about whether the barrels will fit your 16 frame. If they don't know, buy a set of 20s and a set of 12s and keep the receipts. I've always been able to send parts back to them OK as long as I did it by the book. That way you can see for yourself what fits and return what doesn't.

Somebody here may have actually fitted 420 barrels or have a method in mind. I don't know that action but if they are as easy as the hammerless single shots (220) you should have no problem.

Mike Armstrong aka Mesa

Mesa - many thanks again!

Well, after you get them fitted (and I applaud your efforts), to blue them you'll need to learn the arcane art of rust bluing. Easy as falling off a bar stool. I can walk you through the process when the time comes. (The bluing, not the falling!)

Thanks, I've been wanting to do a rust blue project for some time. The metal prep is something that will be a learning curve too. I'm assuming the barrels will need some amount of polishing and I consider buffing wheels to be the kiss of death. The barrels also look like they don't come with the front bead installed.

The polishing is the straightforward part, but labor intensive. You only need to take them down to 400-grit. Pretty easy to install a bead too.

I guess my questions would concern tools and technique. Are there any good sources for reading up on the subject you can recommend?

Tools: various grits sandpaper, 220, 320 and 400 should suffice. Hard but flexible backer for the paper, something that'll conform to the radius of the parts so as not to impart a wavy surface. (Take extra care around sharp edges so as not to soften them.) 0000 steel wool, oil-free. Not hardware store wool as it has oil in it to inhibit rust while setting on the shelf. (I use Liberon brand wool.) Nitrile examination gloves- use after achieving 400x surface every time you touch the barrels. Acetone- to wash the barrels (and the fresh gloves every time you put them on)- I can't stress enough the need to totally de-grease everything once the polishing is done, and keep it oil-free from there on out.

Bluing solution: close your eyes and pick one of the couple that Brownell's sells. There's enough in one of those bottles to do a few guns, but that's the way it is. Follow directions on the bottle. Use the 0000 steel wool to card the rust between cycles.

A "sweat box" is handy to promote even rusting. You can build one in ten minutes out of scrap plywood. PM me for details.

A means of inducing boiling water or a hellacious amount of steam to the rusted parts. For barreled actions, and a couple sets of SxS shotgun barrels I did, a piece of PVC pipe big enough to hold them is all you need- put the barrels in there and fill up with boiling water and let sit for 10 minutes. Remove from tube, card the velvety black rust off with the wool. Repeat the rusting/boiling/carding cycle as often as needed until nice uniform blue-black finish is achieved- anywhere from four to six times is typical. Don't worry about the bores- the boiling hot steel will evaporate the water out of them right quickly. Push a dry patch through them if you feel it necessary.

After the last carding, hit it thoroughly with WD-40 (the only legitimate use for the stuff IMO) to drive any moisture out of hidden crevices. Wipe down and slather on gun oil of your choice. (Preferably all this is done while the steel is still hot/warm.) Do the WD-40 outside as you do not want stray molecules of the stuff contaminating your work area.) let sit overnight, wipe off, put the barrels on the gun and go out and shoot stuff with it.

That's it in a nut shell. Feel free to PM with questions/clarifications.

gnoahhh - thank you very much. It is very generous of you taking the time to impart your knowledge. Back when I had the time (in my 20s) I sanded down one car (MGB) and one motorcycle (Triumph Trophy 500) and became aware of essential backers for sand paper with the hard rubber block (found at most every hardware and car parts store) being the most often used. Could you use one of these if cut down into smaller blocks? My father got into woodworking after he retired and made a number of useful sanding tools by cutting such blocks down to smaller sizes. Many thanks again for your help.

Sure, I do that all the time.

gnoahh, I have never heard anything bad about WD-40. I don't use it on my guns, but use it on my tools. Is this bad?

Mike

No it's not bad. My dad used it on his guns for decades and they were spotless.

The only thing I ever heard about WD40 was years ago from a chemical cleaner salesman. He said the stuff was originally concocted for use as an industrial solvent and that it works great for cleaning road tar off your car. I don't know about the former but he was spot on with the latter. I've used it for displacing water when cleaning up black powder firearms. It does work as a penetrant but I've come across other products that work better.

On a somewhat related topic I've found that ArmorAll makes a great fly line dressing and flotant for dry flies!

After our 10-day waiting period I picked up my 420 today and I think I'm smitten. Its in darn nice shape. I've never had an over/under so the format is a bit new to me. Actually, I've been a one gun shotgunner and that's been with an old Remington Model 11. I also like the old square back Browning and need to find a decent Savage 720, or one of its variants. It has double triggers and an automatic ejector. Its my understanding that they all didn't have these features. Its also chunk but it seems to come up good with the aftermarket butt stock - which appears to be anicer design than the factory issue. I'll put up some pictures as soon as I teach myself how.

I took the plunge (well at least into the shallow end of the pool) and bought the 20 guage barrel. It was advertised as 26-inches long. "in the white", and with extractors. So we, or I, will see if it fits my 16 guage frame.

Let me know if you still want to swap some measurements.

Good show Jeff. At last, someone willing to put paid to this account. Keep us (or at least me) posted on this project.

Holy crap, I just stumbled onto this. 2 year old thread!

I'm guessing we never did come to a conclusion. Wanna continue?

I did come to a conclusion. I have a 16-gauge 420 and acquired a nice set of 20-gauge barrels and forearm. The frame on the 16-gauge appears wider than the 20-gauge frame. When I put the 20-guage barrels on the 16-gauge frame they fit but there is a noticeable gap between the inside walls of the frame and the sides of the barrels. The 20-gauge forearm fits on the 16-gauge frame.

Crazy you dusting this thread off as I just bought a decent 420 in 20-gauge off GB. It should be at my FFL in a couple days and soon I'll have that gun for making comparisons. At present I don't have a 12-guage to compare anything against but I'm looking

So here are my thoughts.

1. Savage made the frame sizes of all three gauges the same but they removed different thicknesses of metal from the inside walls of the frames to accommodate the different widths of barrels (12, 16 and 20-gauges).
2. Savage made three different widths (or sizes) of frames to accommodate the different widths of 12, 16 and 20-gauge barrels.
3. Savage made the 12 and 16-gauge frames the same size but removed metal from the inside walls as discussed above to accommodate for the different widths of the 12 and 16-gauge barrels.

Seems to me you once mentioned you had a 420/430 or two. Put up the frame specs and we'll make some comparisons. Thanks for dusting this thread off.

Ya, own a 430 in 20 ga.

So from what I gather if I had a 12 ga the 20 ga barrels are going to have even a bigger gap than the 16 that you own.

It's kind of a win/lose situation. They will fit but they have a gap on the inside of the frame.

I'll measure up the 20 ga in a bit, just having my morning cup of joe.

That’s pretty much how I see it. The barrels seem to mate with the breech (though there may be internal differences I haven’t accounted for) but we’re still left with a gap between the inside width of the frame and outside width of the barrels. I guess an enterprising person could make an adaptor to fill in the gap if Savage used the same external dimensions for the 12,16 and 20-gauge frames and you stuck with the 12-gauge forearm. I will have a 20-gauge 420 by the end of the month to compare with my 16 and I can post the results.

PS - I’m sure that you, like me, have found it difficult researching these guns but I did come across one account that stated the 12 and 16 gauge guns were built on the larger frame. So it remains to be seen if that is true and if the 20-gauge represents a smaller package.

I gave the only 420 I ever owned (a 20 gauge) to my nephew so I have none to examine. I can picture this gap y'all are talking about, but I'm not sure I understand if it effects lockup of smaller barrels in a larger frame. Is there side to side movement with the smaller "orphan" barrels or do they lock up tight in all directions?

The frame is milled out wider in front of the breech to accommodate the width of the barrels. Different gauge barrels have different widths, increasing in diameter with gauge. Hence a 12-guage barrel will not fit into a 20-gauge frame but, conversely, a 20-gauge barrel will drop into a 12-gauge frame - you just end up with a big gap between the OD of the barrels and the ID of the frame. I am assuming that the ID of the frame assists in supporting the barrels in lock up. This likely creates an unsafe situation in lateral movement and makes using the 420/430 shotgun as a switch barrel gun problematical. What I don't know is if Savage used the (largest) 12-guage frame on all three gauges and just left more meat on the inside to accommodate smaller gauge barrels. This would suck on a 20-gauge gun as it would burden it with an excessively oversized frame. But, I will be able to better address this topic when my 20-gauge shows up in a few days.

P H O T O S

Sure. I'll post photos of both shotguns and the barrel issue as soon as I take possession of the 20-gauge. By the way, that 20-gauge should go nicely with the early EG you sold me. I'll be picking them up at my FFL at the same time. I'm kind of thinking that day will be something like Christmas in January!

I did the paperwork on my 20-gauge tonight and it is a smaller gun all the way around than my 16. So it remains to be determined if the 12 is a larger gun than the 16 or if the two gauges share the same size frames. I’ll be able to make a better comparison on the 16 and 20 in 10-days.

Hmmm....so your saying a 12 ga may be your next buy?

Crap no! I said crap no, no, no. Now what do the say about famous last words? I don't know how things are up in Canada, but the Savage 420/430 is hardly ever seen out here. I was surprised when I found my 16-gauge in Sacramento. That was the first in nearly 20-years of looking. The 20-gauge was a GB buy that came out of Georgia. But, if the 12 is as much bigger than the 16 as that gun is over the 20, then the 12 must be one hefty double. The 20-guage 420 felt nice, at least as nice as a shotgun can feel in the confines of a gun shop.

I picked up the 20-gauge last night and my initial observation was that the 16-gauge is dimensionally larger. I have an extra set of 20-gauge barrels in excellent condition and they fit but were not as snug to the sides of the frame. My hunch is the difference between the two barrel sets just reflects the range of tolerances you got back in day of hand fitting components of firearms. For those interested I’ll make more comparisons later in the week.

430 in 20 ga.