Last Sunday, I got a new gun. For very broad definitions of “new”.
I was having lunch with my parents, Jeffrey, and Beth, and Dad told me Pa-Pa had sent me a gun. This was completely out of the blue. Had no idea it was coming.
The gun itself is a Stevens Model 87a. Semi-automatic .22 rifle. Older gun; my internet research says they were produced between 1938 and 1968. This one has a couple characteristics that mark it as probably an earlier example. Most likely a pre-war gun. Veyy cool, that.
The gun came from Uncle Alfred, a great-uncle of mine who died a few months ago. Cancer. That whole thing was really ugly. His wife was going through his stuff, and his guns were there. Pa-Pa asked her for the rifle to give to me. That was incredibly thoughtful. I really don’t know what to say about it. I’ve wanted a .22 for a long time, and this gun is a particularly neat one, because of the age and the family history.
The gun itself is in pretty good shape. It has a plastic, or “Tennite” stock, which is fairly weird. The plastic is wood-colored, but they clearly didn’t have the technology to do really convincing fake wood; it’s just shades of brown swirled together. Looks OK. The whole gun is forward-heavy because the stock is so light. Sits well on your shoulder, though. Good feel to the gun.
Ready to be cleaned.
You can see the gun there in that picture. The white stuff on the stock is some sort of mold that spread on it. Not sure exactly what it is. Doesn’t seem to have harmed anything. These pictures are all from me setting the gun out to take it apart and clean it the first time. In the background you can see Grandpa’s .30-06, because I figured that as long as I was cleaning guns I might as well run a swab down the bore of his rifle while I was at it. I had his gun from an earlier hunting trip this year.
Notice the gills!
There’s a closer look at the action. This sort of gun is commonly called a “gill gun” on the internet gun sites I’ve visited. You can see the reason there in the picture. Those vertical fins on the receiver are the gills. When you open the slide, you can see all the way through the receiver.
That round handle on the action locks in to prevent the gun from automatically cycling.
Here’s the other side of the receiver. Fairly conventional look, although you don’t see many round handles anymore. At least, I don’t. The gun is semi-automatic, but only with .22 Long Rifle ammunition. It’ll shoot .22 shorts and .22 longs, but you aren’t supposed to use the gun in semi-auto with those. I assume it’ll jam if you try, since the rounds are a different size and might not have enough force to work the slide correctly. When the slide is fully forward, you can push that round handle in to prevent the action from working automatically. Then it can be used similarly to a bolt action. The handle can also lock the slide fully back.
See the white mold on the underside of the tube magazine?
Here I’ve detached the barrel and magazine from the stock. More white mold. The gun and stock were very dirty, in the manner of a machine that has been oiled and left to sit for a long time. Not mistreated, but not thoroughly scraped out in years. Has sort of an odd smell, which I think is the mold.
Lots of fiddly parts here.
Here’s the trigger assembly and firing mechanism. Lots of small parts and springs. That’s a huge difference from more modern guns; most of the newer guns I’ve worked with try to minimize springs that get lost easily. Here, there’s about five individual springs that will try to go flying across the room and hide under the stove if you aren’t careful.
There are a bunch of little pins in the mechanism that look like they should be removable, but have been replaced with permanent rivets. I suspect Uncle Alfred got tired of trying to fit everything back together or lost some pins, and decided to fix it for good. Also, the safety is installed wrong. It works, but it doesn’t click into place. Whoever put it together last reversed two pieces. I fixed that when I reassembled it.
Here's where you hope you remember how to put it back together.
Here’s the gun totally apart. Minus the trigger mechanism with its permanent rivets. I spent more than an hour using rags and toothpicks to clean everything up. Went back together pretty easily, although I had an exploded diagram I found on the Internet for help. Almost left two little screws out at the end, but I caught them.
I cycled a few rounds through, and everything seems to be in good shape. The action grabs cartridges and ejects them properly. Still haven’t fired the gun; that’ll have to wait until this weekend, when I can get out to a range.
Still, I’m pretty pleased about the whole thing.