Sorry folks; here I'm resurrecting a very old thread, but maybe someone can still help.
First, I'm not a hunter any more, but I've been target shooting since 1965 & a happy Mossberg .22 owner for 40 years now.
Recently I bought one of the Davidson's fancy silver .30-30 carbines with the marinecote finish and grey/black plywood stock. It's a lovely little gun too. I love the 3-dot fiber-optic sights too. This is my first lever gun ever.
This gun was more accurate than I expected for a shortie, but the action was a bit balky, and after running 70 rounds through it (Super-X, Hornaday Whitetail, Lever-revolution, Rem CoreLok in 150~170 grain) the action has gotten much worse. Three times I've sprayed the gun out with Rem oil & air, oiled it with Hoppes no. 9 & a dab of grease on strategic spots. Despite my efforts, this rifle just gets worse.
It will tend to lock up when the lever is pressed all the way open, and when closing the lever, it catches right as the lock bar comes up behind the bolt. If you jiggle the lever it always frees up and it feeds and shoots well. I'm pressed to send it back.
<edit> I worked with the 464 a lot last night & determined 5 things about this gun:
First, Davidson's is out of stock & I love this gun too much already, so I will fix it. It definitely needs more break-in, but I've improved it already.
Second, some of the Marinecote finish is sprayed into the top of the receiver. There's only a thin coat on the bolt, but a thick coat on the rails. This was part of my sticking and why it was getting worse. It was scraping up the excess coating. I scraped it all out with a soft metal scraper & the action improved.
Third, the hammer needs to seat better under the bolt when it cocks. It wasn't rubbing evenly, so I dressed the top corner of the hammer where it rubs the bolt. That improved the action too. I took off maybe 0.002" on the high side of the hammer. It's possible the bolt was off that 0.002", but I didn't want to dress the bolt.
4th, When the bolt is fully open, it doesn't have a lot of backspan into the receiver, and there's a lot of pressure on the underside from the hammer. That pressure deflects the bolt up. Try this: Open the action fully, and press down on the back end of the bolt firmly. It will move a lot and so will the hammer.
Anyhow, I think I want to reduce the hammer spring pressure when it's fully open. Maybe that will increase the lock time, but who cares on this gun?
5th Rem oil and Winchester oil are useless on this gun. It likes Deep Creep & a dab of grease on the rising block.