On vintage Brit guns the front beads are more often than not threaded in to the top rib using a 5 or 6BA thread
They were press fit My Sterlingworth
damascus:
Same with American built vintage guns of older manufacture before the stock market crash and depression in this country.
Savage cheapened up the Sterlingworths and Foxes after they bought Fox in 1930. When they ran out of Philadelphia made Fox parts in 1931, the tapping and threading of beads is one of the steps they "dropped" as a function of cost reduction.
There are more "dropped" cost cutting production steps on the inside of the Savage built Sterlingworth and Fox guns as well.