[lacoppari]

I have an old Savage .32 caliber pistol that I recently acquired. It fires but is in dire need of cleaning. I cannot find a model number but it is stamped with a patent date of Nov. 21, 1905. It looks very similar to the one pictured in this months National Rifleman where the patent lawsuit was discussed.

Anyway, I am unable to get the pistol apart in order to give it a good cleaning. Can anyone provide me with some hints about how to do this? Thanks in advance for any assistance.

 

[ribbonstone2]

Been awhile, I kind of liked those odd looking (art deco style) pistols. Were a several varaiations, and a later (1917?) model with more of a slated back strap.

Odd think is that it has a roational locked breech. The force of the bullet being engraved rotates the barrel, barrel has little lugs that lock into recesses from that roation, so the slide won't start blowing back until the bullet has cleared the barrel and the barrel un-rotates.

"Hammer" is really a cocking indicator. It isn't a hammer as it doesn't hit anything, it just pivots back to show that the striker it is connected to is cocked.

Here is a take down for the basic 1907 model... as i remember it, all of the models followed something much the same.
http://www.vintagepistols.com/1907/disassembly.html

 

[lacoppari]

Thanks a lot. It came apart quite easily.

By the way, I have noticed that the pistol is very difficult to 'shuck'. I have other autos and each of them is much easier to shuck.

 

[ribbonstone2]

Did run on a pretty heavy recoil spring, but should be managable but stiff.

Do NOT take apart the striker/hammer assembly! Just put the major parts (grips off) in a bath of solvent to soak. Try to use mineral spirits, fuel oil, etc...somthing where you'd have to wrok at it to set yourself on fire. Let it soak, use an old tooh brush, and repeat that a couple of times.

Either blow it out with compressed air or just sling it around to get the excess off and let it dry. Lightly lube with Breakfree and you should see it ease up a bit in cylcing.

The two I played with were pretty stiff operating, the trigger pull was also on the stiff side. Sights are those tiny nearly useless things of the 1920's (same as on other guns of the era). Mine would feed anything that even looked like a .32acp round.

Only two other bits of lore.

The rotational lock wasn't really needed. An old Ameridan rifleman from the 1930's outlined a test where they lathed off the barrel lugs and gave it a try.... worked just fine with no differnces noted in either velocity or case expansion.

They made a very few scaled up versions in .45 for the trials that reuslted in the Colt 1911 being selected. I don't remember how many...lets just say a handful were made. Every so often one of those big guns is makes it to auction for new car prices.

 

[m141a]

look like this???

 

[lacoppari]

Yes, but mine has plastic grips on it. And yours seems to be in better shape than mine.

 

[lacoppari]

Did run on a pretty heavy recoil spring, but should be managable but stiff.

I cleaned the pistol up and oiled it. The slide now moves with less effort now. I enjoyed the advertisement portion of the website.

While I had the slide and barrel off I got the little spring loaded pin on the trigger mechanism rotated which released it from a lug that holds it against its spring load. This prevented me from getting the slide back on. But I finally realized the spring loaded piece had to be in front of (towards end of barrel) the little lug. And to position it, the piece had to be rotated.

Anyway, thanks again for the help.

 

[mrkirbymc]

Trouble disassembling a 1905 Savage .32 10 shoot semiautomatic pistol

I have a 1905 Savage .32 10 shot semiautomatic pistol. I can't get the slide off the pistol. Hammer assembly is no problem to remove. Any suggestions. I want to take it apart - the slide drags a little and won't let the gun cycle completely and reload after the first shoot. It used to work great. No visible rust - I've got it lubed up well. I've watched youtube videos and previous posts here. No luck so far.

 

[lacoppari]

After reading your post I got mine out and disassembled it. I noticed that after removing the bolt if you pull on the trigger you cannot remove the slide. This is because a lever pops up and catches something on the bottom of the slide. Knowing this suggests to me that you should make sure the trigger is fully forward. If that does not free up the slide, try tapping the butt of the pistol on something hoping the inertia of the lever will cause it to fall. The slide should not be bearing on the lever when this is done.

Slide will not come off if magazine is inserted.

 

[Rail]

release tension first

I finally found a little info on the breech plug/bolt mechanism. Once rotated and removed the 'hammer' assembly can be removed by pushing in on the lower part of the cocking lever (the part that 'pops' down/out a bit when you remove the bolt from the slide. After pushing in on this to relieve pressure on the sear just push the sear back and release the pressure on the lower part of the 'hammer'/cocking lever.

At this point you can insert a tool - thin bladed screwdriver etc - holding some tension on the firing spring pin and simultaneously push up on the two dies of the horseshoe shaped firing pin retainer from the bottom upwards.

Popping that out then lets you unpin the cocking lever and remove it. Takedown of the rest of the parts is a matter of being careful and not damaging or losing anything.