The subject this evening is a Stevens 555. The complaint is off-centered firing pins as shown in the picture below. I noticed it when it was first purchased brand new but so far the gun seems to function just fine. The first question is, is this an issue or does something rotate as the barrels are being shut to make everything line up in the center of the hole? If it is an issue I may have follow up questions I suppose but let's start with the first question.

Fire a few shells and check the primers to see if centered, likely no issue.

If it works . . .

If the pins don't rub, I'd say it is fine.

Aren’t the firing pins at an angle? One pointed up and the other down. The hammers essentially side by side. It makes for an odd looking dimple.

It's a Stevens, not anywhere close to a premium gun. What is going on is that the monoblok for the barrel assembly was bored to a different spacing than the receiver. Odds are you will find that on every Stevens you can put your hands on. Good news is that it doesn't matter a bit, the anvil on shotgun primers is placed so it's still perfectly sensitive to an off center strike. Basically if you quit looking at this you'll find your gun still fires every time you pull the trigger.

Note, one weakness for the Stevens is that it's not been designed as a competition gun so 2 or 3 years of heavy use, say 500 rounds or more per month, and you may start seeing misfires due to worn out firing pins.

quote:

Originally posted by Scooter123:
It's a Stevens, not anywhere close to a premium gun. What is going on is that the monoblok for the barrel assembly was bored to a different spacing than the receiver. Odds are you will find that on every Stevens you can put your hands on. Good news is that it doesn't matter a bit, the anvil on shotgun primers is placed so it's still perfectly sensitive to an off center strike. Basically if you quit looking at this you'll find your gun still fires every time you pull the trigger.

Note, one weakness for the Stevens is that it's not been designed as a competition gun so 2 or 3 years of heavy use, say 500 rounds or more per month, and you may start seeing misfires due to worn out firing pins.

The good news is that there's probably not a person on Earth who will ever shoot a Stevens OU 500 times a month, and definitely not for 2 years.

Not swiping at the gun or the OP, just saying that 99% of gunners don't shoot anywhere near that much and if they do, they are serious enough about it to spend bigger money on their gun(s).

I have the same gun without the Steven's name on it. I'll look this evening and see if mine looks the same.

quote:

Originally posted by YellowJacket:

Not swiping at the gun or the OP, just saying that 99% of gunners don't shoot anywhere near that much and if they do, they are serious enough about it to spend bigger money on their gun(s).

Even though I swiped my card to pay for it, this is my son’s choice for a shotgun to use for his first year on his school’s trap team. There were multiple attempts to dissuade him from getting this one as I was trying to encourage him to go with something more along the Montefeltro line or a used Citori but he kept coming back to this one. He shot 18 on his 4th round ever so it must be working (even if it will only last a few years).

quote:

Originally posted by YellowJacket:

The good news is that there's probably not a person on Earth who will ever shoot a Stevens OU 500 times a month, and definitely not for 2 years.

Not swiping at the gun or the OP, just saying that 99% of gunners don't shoot anywhere near that much and if they do, they are serious enough about it to spend bigger money on their gun(s).

Never say never. One of the guys on my Skeet squad went 2 x 100 at the State Championship this year and he won the 20 gauge event. Back in 2008 he started out shooting Skeet with a Stoeger that cost him just under 300 dollars. For the next 8 years he had a lot of wins at the club level shoots and it drove some of the shooters with high dollar guns a bit nuts that he would win so often. BTW, e now shoots a CZ Redhead Premier Target so he's still running an economy class gun but one that is made well enough to stand up in competition use.

On an additional note I took another look at the pic the OP posted and noticed that the firing pins appear off center in that pic. One was to the right and the other to the left. The reason for that is very simple, firing pins are retracted after firing so they won't snag on the dimples in the primers and make opening the gun difficult. In the case of the Stevens I would bet that the bores for the firing pins are angled to make replacing the firing pins easier. so they are retracted in a bore that is angled. I expect that if you were to push those pins forward so they are right at the Breech face they will be on center.