Savage 24C

I had a 24C in .22 LR / 20ga., sorry to rain on the love fest, but it was built poorly, shot inaccurately, and the 20 ga barrel shot so far from the .22 sights that you could actually miss a sitting grouse with the cylinder bore shotgun barrel at 20 yds. ( it is NOT IC but has NO choke at all!) when aiming with the rifle sights. It failed to extract the empty shells sometimes, and was stocked far too low in the comb to be useful for flying birds.
Other than that, it looked cool, came in a nice take down case, had good specifications on paper, and had good resale value.
What a POS!
I understand that the crappy barrel band/front sight casting that mine came with was replaced with a soldered barrel spacer and separate front sight in later models, but it did not save the model from cancellation due to poor sales. Good riddance!
If you want a functional combination gun, you just may luck out with a Savage 24, or instead buy a good European gun for four times the money and be assured that it will function as intended. Unless you are lucky, you DO get what you pay for!
 
A big advantage for me of the .410 over the 20ga is that the .410 will be full choke, so a tighter pattern which I prefer for grouse. IC is what I believe most of the 20ga's are choked for.

I've got a .410/22lr I picked up a year or two ago. It's got a cool feature in that the wood furniture has a green coating/cover on it, not sure how to describe it but it looks great. It's thick, not quite plastic but not thin like a paint either. Then it has grouse, gold inlay/painted on either side of the buttstock. I tried to find if they made a ltd. run of these or if was done after the fact, couldn't find any info on it. Looks factory to my untrained eye but who knows.

I love the way it looks but have been toying with the idea of selling it just because it doesn't get the use i thought it would. I don't like carrying it on the quad as I don't want to knock it around too much so I end up carrying a flobert single shot .410 I've got instead. That's another neat little shotgun - takedown single shot with what looks almost like a falling block action. Breach opens from the top and cocks as the breach is pulled up to expose the chamber.
 
I have gone through about 6 in the past year. Various combinations. As previously noted a lot of them are poorly indexed. If the barrels are joined along their entire length it seems to make them better.

I have a 22mag over .410. It is well regulated.
 
Everyone seems to either LOVE their 24s and speak highly of how well they perform...and the other 50% say they are too heavy, poorly made and can't shoot for ####. I don't know if I wanna take a gamble or not for one :(
 
I have a 24H-DL in .22/20ga. I bought it new in about 1966. It has about a million miles of "truck gun", and has put a lot of Prairie Chicken and Ruffed Grouse on the table.

Heavy, yes. Very accurate in .22. No idea what choke it is. Nasty kick when you are shooting gophers and you think you are letting off a .22, when it is actually set for 20 ga!!:p
 
If you want a 22mag /410 then just buy the IZH94 Russian. I have one and I love it. It seems to be indexed fine and it comes with 4 different chokes. The chokes allow you to gain the most accuracy out of slugs. With the IC choke the slugs didn't group worth a crap. Full was ok but modified created a nice, small 0.5" group at 40 yards. The 22 mag seem to hit within 1 inch of the slug group. I also bought the bigger brother, a 223/12g. The bigger brother has an adjustment screw for indexing the barrels properly. The 223 barrel shot a 0.5" 3 shot group at 200 yards and I posted awhile ago showing the target.
I also bought "Browning Skeeters" for the 12g so I can shoot the smaller gauges if I want. I would like to buy a 22 mag insert for the 223 chamber in the near future.
:D
 
Ahhhh the 24

I have alot of these as I collect them (oh and maddog i have a .357 over 20). You will hear people bash them all the time. They are what they are. They are fun. They are NOT cheap to buy. You won't find many under 425 bones anymore but whatever you can usually sell them for atleast what you pay for them. Now as for the 24C model I got one a while ago and have been away working ever since so I can't comment on it but mine was in good shape and i like the pleather carry case and LOVE the butt plate.
Love them or hate them they are fairly unique.
Joe
 
i had one in .223 over 12 gauge, a 24F.
on paper the gun looks great. im sure some of those that have older ones passed down to them love them for nostalgic reasons.

i hated mine. to put it bluntly, its a complete POS compared to a proper pump shotgun or a proper bolt action rifle. the novelty of having both a rifle and shotgun wears off very quickly once you realize that neither are remotely as effective as their standalone counterparts, and the gun is heavy and unwieldy with horrific balance.

perhaps if i had purchased something like a .22LR over 20GA as a plinker, and had low expectations, my opinion would differ -- but i would highly advise against buying one in any centerfire chambering.

the extraction on the guns is pitifully weak. the entire mechanism is actuated by underengineered, non-hardened pins that will flex and eventually bend. most savage 24s in centerfire chamberings will bear the telltale signs of someone prying under the extractor with a screwdriver or SAK to assist extraction. i was able to remedy this by replacing some of the pins with custom ones i made from HSS drill bit shanks, but the extraction was still very weak and unreliable. one stuck case and your entire hunt/outing is ruined.
btw: im not really interested in hearing people comments about how well the 24 extracts .22LR - theres a huge difference between extracting a tiny rimfire case and centrefire brass.

-the gun needs to be recocked after firing either barrel. the hammer will naturally interfere with scope mounting.

-the barrels are not regulated, at all. there is simply a ring on the rifle barrel into which the shotgun barrel slides, and floats in.
the factory flip-up sights are absolute garbage. youll be able to achieve somewhat acceptable accuracy on the top rifle barrel if you mount an optic - however they are not known to be very accurate guns. which brings me to....

-shot accuracy is very poor. the best way to aim shot is point shooting with a bead - this is impossible with a smoothbore barrel with crappy flip-up rifle sights that are high above the bore above a rifle barrel. mounting an optic really reduces smoothbore versatility/effectiveness. as i said, the shot barrel is 'floated' so its already not the most accurate. its just on there as a sortof 'option' - almost a novelty. youll start to wonder why you are lugging all that extra weight around.

like i said the guns look great on paper, and the concept seems very alluring, but in actual use you are *far* better off getting a purpose-built, quality rifle or shotgun for your intended application than you are getting a clunky, heavy combo that is ideal for nothing.

if you do get one i highly recommend you get something like a .22LR over 20ga, and stay the hell away from the centerfire chamberings. realize that you are going to be carrying a gun that is a couple pounds heavier, less accurate and less effective than a bolt action for the novelty of having a single shot, inaccurate, undermounted shotgun.

out of every gun i have ever owned (and gotten rid of), the Savage 24F stands out as by far the worst.
 
I have one of these in .223/12G with the synthetic stock. I put a 4X Bushnell shotgun scope on it. I agree the extraction of rifle shells is weak but mine improved immensely after a couple of boxes of shells. I also put a hammer extension on it as it's hard to #### with gloves on and the scope.

I use this gun for coyotes here in the East. The rifle is surprisingly accurate . Not a gun for wing shooting. Too heavy to carry around all day.

It's perfect for what I use it for and I would'nt sell it
 
Mine's OK

I got mine from EE as well, it's a 30/30 20 gauge. To solve the shell storage issue I put a butt stock slip-on that holds 5 shotshells and a sling that has spots for 4 rifle shells.

Set up this way, you can stand it up in the corner of the wall tent for anyone to use. Then whether you have a bear rooting thru the cooler or a grouse peeking in your shaving kit you've got then right gun handy.
 
The only Savage 24 Iv'e owned that had proper barrel regulation was a .410/.22 the rest were junk including two 30-30-20gauges.The shotgun didn't hit within a yard of the rifle.The Baikal is even worse.................JMO..........Harold
 
mbogo3 said:
The only Savage 24 Iv'e owned that had proper barrel regulation was a .410/.22 the rest were junk including two 30-30-20gauges.The shotgun didn't hit within a yard of the rifle.The Baikal is even worse.................JMO..........Harold
Click to expand...

That's too bad. Never had any problem with mine. The 30-30 would hit about two inches high at 100 yd, and the 20 ga was right-on-good for grouse and ptarmigan.

Ted
 
I got my 24C (.22/.410) when I was 9.. it's still my go to small game/camping/bush gun.

Both barrels are regulated perfectly, 410 slugs and buck are quite effective on just about anything coyote and smaller. The .22 is very accurate.

Great gun, can't be beat.


Now, my friend has a .22mag/20ga, it's a newer synthetic model, the barrels are out terribly, it cant hit sh*t. But any of the old timers are very well built & dependable in my experience.
 
Well I had the chance to try my salvage 24c out. It is the one that is welded the length of the barrel and the switch on the side of the reciever. It was very accurate. Both calibers shot on target. The trigger was pretty decent. Overall it is everything I hoped it would be. It is a keeper and wont be going on the EE.

:)
 
Order a 5.5 pound TC Contender rifle through your local T/C dealer with .357/.38special and 28 gauge barrels. You'll be good for everything the spruce moose forest offers, and 28 gauge is much better than .410

You might order .30-30 or .223, or 6.8 SPC to taste.

Only takes two minutes to switch.
 
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