Sauer Firing Pin Issue

[White Dog]

Being new to this forum, I hope this is the right place to ask this question.

I am the proud new owner of an early post-war (1949) Sauer 16 ga SXS. This is a 'common man' grade. Nothing fancy but a good tight gun I can tinker with without fear of damaging a true 'collectible'. Like many old guns, this has a minor issues that need a little care.

The main issue is firing pin retraction timing. The left firing pin is late retracting on opening after firing so it drags on the spent primer making the gun difficult to open. Kind of odd because there is no obvious wear anywhere. I presume the fix would be to slightly bend the cocking lever, weld a bit of metal onto one end or the other of the cocking lever or adding a bit of metal to the contact point for the cocking lever on the fore end iron.

Anyone had to deal with this?

[White Dog]

So I was staring at the bottom of the open action while having my evening tea (Canadian, eh!) and a thought came to mind. The cocking levers are bilaterally symmetrical and, in theory at least, should be interchangeable. This reminded me that Jack Rowe on his Brownells videos had said that the English mark the left part with a nick, the Europeans the right. Yup, you guessed it. Someone, presumably used to English guns, had taken the cocking levers out and re-installed them in the wrong side. I switched them back and the action works fine.

Sometimes the obvious isn’t.