Some long guns are notoriously easy to take apart and clean; bolt-action rifles, for instance. But then there are others--such as the pre-64 Winchester lever-action .30-30--which challenge even an experienced gunsmith.
The .30-30, of course, is a classic. Designed by John Browning, who sold the patent to Winchester, the gun has been around in almost its original form for 100 years. In 1964, Winchester changed the way the gun is manufactured, going from a machined steel to a investment cast receiver. This made the .30- 30 less expensive to produce, and simpler to take apart and clean.
Because the pre-64 guns are almost entirely hand-fitted, they're widely regarded as collectors items, even though their owners still use them as working guns. To find out how to properly clean and care for these classic rifles, I consulted with two north Florida gunsmiths, Douglas Davey and Gary Marshall. Marshall is the smith at Panhandle Gun & Pawn in Tallahassee, and Davey is a freelance gunsmith based in Quincy. Even with two competent pairs of hands, Marshall and Davey struggled a bit to get the .30-30 back together once they had it apart and cleaned. The particular gun we were working with is one Marshall's father gave him, and is a lovely piece, still in use though it has quite a few years on it.
Actually, Davey said, superficial cleaning of the .30-30 is quite simple. "Most people just scrub the bore and wipe out the action. Then oil everything you can see." If you go beyond that, be sure you have lots of patience, plenty of time, and another person to help you. Some steps of reassembly almost require one person to hold parts in place while someone else inserts screws.
"Disassembling this gun and putting it back together may not be something the average gun owner wants to tackle," Marshall warned. "If you don't do it all the time, you're going to run into problems. Almost every part to this gun has a trick."
With that in mind, let's take a look at what you're getting into if you do go into the gun.
The first step in disassembly is to remove the top tang screw to take off the stock. "Don't take off the bottom tang screw yet," Marshall said. "That holds the hammer spring under tension."
Now, from the left side of the receiver, remove the finger lever stop pin screw. It's the one on the top of the receiver, at the front, above the loading port. Then you can use a punch to drift out the finger lever pin.
Take note: keep track of which screw goes where. You're going to end up with lots of little pieces, and the screws are all just a bit different. If you don't pay attention to how the gun comes apart, trust me, you're not going to be able to get it back together.
Next, Marshall said, remove the link pin screw. It's at the front end of the action, on the underside of the gun. Then from the side, drift out the link pin the screw holds in place. The entire lever assembly should drop out of the receiver.
Now it's time to take out the lower tang screw, Marshall said. This will allow the mainspring--which is a flat spring, not a coiled one--to drop out. Don't take out the front screw in the bottom tang, as moving it will change the trigger pull.
Marshall then removed the hammer pivot screw, a large screw at the bottom of the hammer, and took out the hammer. Using a brass rod, he gently drifted the lower tang out of the rear of the receiver. Then he was able to remove the locking bolt and the breech bolt from the receiver.
"It's a reciprocating bolt that goes straight forward, and straight back," Davey said. "It's a falling block action."
Two screws, one on each side, hold the carrier--the part that lifts the cartridge out of the magazine and inserts in into the chamber--in place. Take them out and the carrier drops out of the bottom of the receiver.
The last step is to take out the spring cover screw, on the right side of the receiver and just behind the loading port. That will allow the spring cover to drop out. "There's not really anything more you can take apart," Marshall said, "unless you take the forearm apart, but not very many people ever do that."
Clean all the parts and pieces with a good solvent, and then oil them well. Now is when things get interesting.
You basically reverse the procedure, beginning with putting the spring cover back in place. But when it's in the gun, the spring cover is under tension. So to get the screw through the wall of the receiver and back into the spring cover, you've got to put tension on the cover. The day we talked, both Davey and Marshall had both hands tied up holding the spring cover in place and getting the screw back in.
The carrier didn't go in easily, either. They finally discovered that the two screws that held it in place on either side of the receiver were slightly different lengths. Once they got the correct screw in the right side of the receiver and the carrier, the left side followed easily. See what Marshall means about tricks?
Though they both have lots of experience, Davey and Marshall needed a long hour to get the .30-30 back together. As we talked, they reiterated what they'd said to me at the beginning of our discussion: despite its popularity, the pre-64 .30-30 is a complicated gun to take apart and work on.
Unless your .30-30 is really dirty, or the action has been soaked with blood or some other foreign substance, your best bet is to do exactly what Davey recommended. You won't get into serious trouble if you scrub out the bore, clean all the surfaces you can get to, and oil the action.
Though we can give you some basic information about disassembly and cleaning, there's no substitute for experience. If you're determined to take a .30-30 apart and work on it, an article of this length is not sufficient to tell you everything you need to know. Find someone who works on them regularly and ask for help the first time. You'll need it.
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