[VH20]

Robert, you have it backwards. The pin that you see protruding from the action knuckle (you meant "knuckle", not "ankle", right?) is normally depressed when the forend is in place. It must be FULLY PROTRUDING for the barrels to come off. The forend depresses it, which causes the cocking linkage to engage the barrels so that the gun will cock when opened. The engagement of the cocking linkage to the barrels is also what keeps the barrels from falling off when the gun is opened. Now, to remove the barrels - under normal circumstances when you remove the forend, the pin springs forth from the knuckle. Internally, what has happened is that the cocking linkage has disengaged from the barrels, so now when you open the gun the barrels rotate much farther down than normal and just fall off the gun. The situation you are having is most likely that the cocking linkage is not fully disengaging the barrels. You can verify this by the following: Dry fire the gun, remove the forend. Open the gun up fully. If the barrels come to a stop and don't come off, close it up again and dry fire it again. If the gun fires, that means it re-cocked and the cocking linkage didn't disengage as it should have when the forend was removed, savvy?

The most likely cause for not disengaging is gummed up oil and grime. With the forend removed you can try spraying something like Remington Action Cleaner down into the action, and down the tunnel in the knuckle that the pin rides in. Soak it real good and set it aside with the gun resting vertically on the muzzles (stock up, so that all the crud drains out of the action and away from the wood). After a while, spray it good again and tap all around the action on the floor plate and knuckle with a plastic or rubber mallet. You are trying to jar the linkage free from the gunk so that the spring tension can fully disengage it. Give it a few solid whacks (within reason, of course). You can also try "flicking" the pin by depressing it and releasing it suddenly so that it snaps briskly when released. This should get your linkage freed up and disengaged. If not, repeat the whole procedure a few times (spray, soak, whack, flick, etc.). If it still won't come apart, the floor plate will have to come off, but that's something to avoid right now.

Jim