Savage 170 Pump Rattle

[shastacaster]

Hi all,

First time posting here, looking to see if anyone in the community might have more insight on this.
I picked up a Savage 170 in .30-30 from my local gun shop the other week; for me it shoulders well and looks great, and I saw it as a decent boar-hunting rifle.
To get to the point though, the one problem is how much the pump rattles. What I've gathered from other posts made throughout the years is that yes, the pumps on these guns have always rattled a little.
However it's not just the forearm rattling against the magazine tube side-to-side, there's also a full 2-3mm of linear travel where the pump can slide back and forth freely.

Now I get that these were budget rifles back in the 70's, but the pump is loose enough for me to wonder if this is beyond just being large tolerances.
Are all 170's like this or am I looking at a legitimate issue like a worn-out slide lock?

[Big Al1]

All Savage pumps, rifle and shotguns built on that frame design, rattle like a maraca!

[shastacaster]

I'm guessing you have one then? Can you push the forearm back and forth about a quarter inch before it starts pushing the bolt back?
Anyone have any fixes out there to dampen it?
Last I heard maracas aren't so great to bring along hunting

[Mad Dog]

I've owned 3 170's and they all rattled and ya, not just back and forth.

[Sav22]

The later versions added a spring loaded cross bar at the front of the magazine tube that pushed back on the forearm to control front to back play, this might also have helped a little with side to side, but probably not much. I saw two of the early ones without this at a local gunshop that had pieces of foam rubber shoved in between the barrel & magazine tube - didn't look good, but it might have worked.

[shastacaster]

Thanks for the replies guys, glad to know it's not just some one-off issue.
@Sav22, I'll look for photos of that cross bar. If it's something that can be retrofitted, I can design and fabricate one for my 170 or track one down online
They really should have put an indexing key on the magazine tube for the forearm pump to ride on; would have eliminated most of the side-to-side movement