doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Savage OU?

I had one of the Italian ones too, briefly. Decent gun, I thought. I believe all the Valmet-made guns are actually marked "made by Valmet", and I think they also say "Finland". But the sliding breech hood is a giveaway if not.

the old 420 and 430 are significant as being one of the very few examples of an o/u actually made in America. those 2, the marlin 90, the remington 32, now the galazan. and i've forgotten what it was but i stumbled across something else even more arcane than the old savages a while back but can't recall the manufacturer.

and the savage o/u rifle/shotgun combo guns and the 410 built on that frame. those would count.

i had the 430 and a marlin 90 at the same time. the latter with 26" bbls and the former with 28's. the marlin was heavier than the mfg spec and the savage was lighter. in spite of 2" more bbls and much more dense (and attractive) wood it was only 6oz heavier. both fit equally well and i shot them equally well. i've owned guns far more expensive than either that were no where near as usable.

i had a 333 (valmet) 20 ga and it was an outstanding gun altho needed more LOP and had a little too much drop. never did own one of the 440 series. i think their production span was a lot shorter and aren't near as common as the 330 guns.

and yes, the valmet guns are unmistakably marked as to origin. don't recall the exact markings but you can't mistake them. our cabelas has had one in 12 ga for quite some time and is identical to the savage guns in every respect down to the stamped checkering pattern and rolled on engraving but it carries no Savage markings whatsoever. they're not really out of line on the price. i think people just don't know what it is.

roger

My 333 20ga also has a V suffix on the ser. number.

I've certainly learned a lot from you fellows and I thank you for it. I'm confident that the gun I looked at is a U.S. built Savage and certainly worth another look. It's modest price is within my limited means and it may offer an opportunity to tinker a little bit and clean it up so it becomes an inexpensive "shooter".

I'm a bit put off, though, by the peculiar tan/brown receiver. I've never seen anything like it.

was blued to begin with. turned brown with age. just a function of condition.

fnb, I believe the Rem 3200 and Peerless were made in this country, as well as the Ruger Red Labels of course. Could the oddball you ran across be a Morrone, by any chance? Fewer than 500 made, from what I can find, and I can't recall ever having seen one.

I think there's another in the works: a new Ithaca OU which will be made in this country; same outfit that's making the Model 37's currently. And there's also that Parker OU. Don't know whether those are still being made.

the 3200 i mentally lumped in with the 32 which i shouldn't have as it was a different model. forgot all about the ruger even tho i had one but didn't consider it a very memorable. the peerless likewise slipped my mind. i don't pay much attention to anything made in past 30 yrs or so and that one i think had a really short life besides. the galazan belongs on the list but that's hardly something a normal person can afford.

Morrone - may have been that. it was a name i was totally unfamiliar with and i can't even recall how i came across it. IIRC it was a quite good looking gun. did it date from pre-WWII?

is still a pretty short list for US made o/u's and would be tough assembling a collection of each model, to say nothing of variations. even marlin 90's aren't exactly easy to find except in 12ga.

i've passed up 2 32's in past couple of years, one at cabelas and another at the dallas market hall show. both were reasonable and both times i knew i'd messed up before the sun went down.

roger

Roger, the Morrone was post-war, 49-50 or so.