The side to side play is common but the lever should stay in place, on it’s own, when closed.
You have four basic positions.
Fully open, lever down and all the way forward, this ejects your cartridge.
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The next position is basically like a wall, or stop. As the lever moves to the rear it has a wall kind of like pulling a trigger on a handgun. This will lift the loading block about halfway up.
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By adding pressure upward on the lever it will go pass what feels like a hump. This will completely lift the loading block, closing off the chamber.
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There’s another notch that locks the lever in the up position.
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The pressure on the lever, if I remember right, are from the parts of the action and the hammer spring.
I may have an old book with an exploded diagram, I’ll look for it..
Gunny, is yours a model 1915 or the earlier model 1894. I think the knurled takedown knob on yours may indicate that it is the latter. If so, it has a totally different hammer spring system than the model 1894. They went from a flat spring to a coil spring with a long pivoting guide rod.
I've learned that there is a lot of crossover between the models and that Stevens was constantly updating minor internal features during the life of a particular model---so much so that some parts are not even compatible within the same model series. For example, the diagram that Tark posted is only one of four different versions of the model 94. It has the1st version extractor with an internal plunger. The other 3 versions have no internal plunger and will not work in that particular configuration. In other words, these little rifles are both simple and confusing as hell at the same time. That diagram does seem to duplicate the version of the1894 that I have though
I just picked this up from my FFL yesterday, but when I got it the lever would fall slightly out of the closed position--even with the hammer down. When I removed the stock from the tang, I realized that the flat hammer spring was not tightened down fully to the bottom tang. After tightening that up the lever tended to stay in the closed position until I put it in half-cock either manually or by working the lever. At that point, it would hang down about a half-inch gap from the bottom of the receiver. However, when I take the hammer to full cock the lever just drops, opening the action.
Looking at the diagram posted by Tark it appears that once the hammer is at full cock, it would seem to not even come in contact with either the lever, the link, or the breech block. The only three forms of spring pressure of any kind that I can ascertain is the hammer spring, the trigger return spring and the extractor plunger spring. The trigger spring would have no effect on anything other than the trigger. The only other source of spring pressure would be the plunger spring in the front of the extractor. Maybe that's defective although the extractor seems to function correctly.
Here is a diagram of your rifle. As you can see, the action consists of many pins, pivots and links, all of which must line up. It is not a strong system. The pins would wear the holes in the links egg shaped, with prolonged use and that led to play in the action and increased headspace. Once things got too sloppy, the lever will no longer hold itself closed.
I haven't taken the hammer or the trigger out yet but I did remove the lever and the breech block which are connected by the link with a protrusion which is what forces the hammer to half-cock when one lowers the lever. None of the holes are elongated and the link pins are in tight enough that I would have to use a punch to get them out. In other words, those three pieces appear to interact with no apparent play when outside the receiver.
The only apparent play is a little side to side play with the lever and the inner sides of the receiver, which might be normal for a rifle this old.
While I haven't shot any regular 22 cartridges in gun yet, I did test some 22. cal starter pistol blanks in it. They all fired as they should, but then of course I had to hold the lever up by hand to do so.
It's got to be something I'm overlooking, but I'll figure it out eventually.
I looked up that single shot book by Mr. De Haas that you mentioned. Being published in 1969, it's long out of print and the cheapest used copy I could find on was $90 on Amazon. I found one on eBay but it was double that amount. I consider myself a pretty decent amateur gunsmith but after I retired and downsized I sold off most of my machine tools. However, I can still fabricate a lot of stuff with just a file and a bench grinder, Unfortunately, that book is almost a 3rd of what I paid for the rifle. so I'll have to think about it.
Thanks, gents.
P.S. I see I was composing while Tark was posting what may be the answer. The extractor is a bit worn but it seems to function OK. The plunger also still has a spring action to it, but then I can't see what's going on inside the receiver. I found a website that sells that exact part. Of course at $48, it's not cheap but if it makes the thing work
it'll be worth it. I guess I need to pull the original extractor again and inspect it a bit closer.
Thanks