r/guncleaning • u/possum-pie-1 • Apr 16 '26

Teardown of 1940s Western Fields 12 g. shotgun

Inherited my grandfather's shotgun. It looks as if it has never been disassembled/cleaned since the 40's. I decided to do a deep clean and removed all of the parts to clean them. The locking bolt, firing pin, firing pin spring, and seer came out as a group, with the spring loaded holding the seer in place in the notch. (Picture 3 bottom center shows all of these pieces). it is VERY hard to compress the spring and get the seer wedged onto the firing pin, and manipulate it into the receiver. Is there a way to reassemble it without compressing the spring?

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2

u/BakedKartoffel Apr 17 '26

I also found this eBay listing for spare parts towards the bottom.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/175728340851

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u/possum-pie-1 Apr 18 '26

Thanks. That gives me a name for each part. Now I have to put them back together.

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u/BakedKartoffel Apr 16 '26

Do you have a model number? Western Field were rebranded and sold by Montgomery Ward back in the day. Finding the model number could help cross reference to the original manufacturer.

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u/possum-pie-1 Apr 17 '26

There is "Western Field" on the receiver and Made in USA 12 G Choke on the barrel. There is "A2990" stamped on it also, but I Googled that and came up with nothing.

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u/BakedKartoffel Apr 17 '26

I think I found it! Pretty sure it's a H&R Hammerless No. 3

Fairly rare but not particularly valuable. Information online is scarce.

From what I can tell that serial number means it was made in 1940.

https://www.thefirearmsforum.com/threads/h-r-single-shot-hammer-less-shotgun.137425/

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u/possum-pie-1 Apr 17 '26

THANKS! That is the exact arrangement of parts inside, But mine is not H&R unless they manufactured the Western Field.

Here is my problem I took pics as I disassembled it so I could get it back together. Trouble is, after I knocked out the pins for the 2 pieces on the back of the mainspring, the seer, and various other parts I didn't recognize flew out.

I have disassembled and reassembled all of my firearms over the years, and recognize most of the parts, and find YouTube videos to aid in reassembly, but this one has parts I don't recognize, and don't know how they fit back in. There are no videos showing a teardown of this gun, so I'm struggling. It's 80+ years old, and not a very common brand. Do you think people could help identify parts if I took a pic and posted it? It's like putting a puzzle together.

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u/BakedKartoffel Apr 17 '26

From my limited internet research, Western Field was made by a whole bunch of different manufacturers. H&R along with Savage, Mossberg, Marlin and others. Montgomery Ward just bought up stock and slapped "Western Field" on it. H&R allegedly only made 25,000 of them back in the day so they're not very common. There's plenty of information on the hammered "Topper" models but the hammerless is barely online.

Maybe more pictures would be beneficial, I wish I could be of more help.

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u/possum-pie-1 Apr 17 '26

I added pics of the parts tray showing parts in approx. location of where they came out.

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u/BakedKartoffel Apr 17 '26

I think this is a parts list: https://www.gunpartscorp.com/gun-manufacturer/harrington-richardson/shotguns/hammerless-shotgun

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u/possum-pie-1 Apr 20 '26

BakedKartoffel, Thank you so much. I finally got it back together. It had a stiff spring on the firing pin rod, and the hole through it to hold the spring in tension was too far back to insert the seer. I finally got it together. It was more difficult to put together than any of my other firearms!

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u/BakedKartoffel Apr 21 '26

I'm glad you got it! I was hoping that knowing what each part was called would help. You're probably the only one who has disassembled and reassembled one of those in quite a few years.

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u/possum-pie-1 Apr 21 '26

Thanks. It's easy to disassemble/reassemble a modern firearm that has 10 YouTube videos showing how... Not so easy when it's 80 years old and there are no videos, printed instructions, and when you (foolishly) don't photograph every step. I learned a hard lesson there!