doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Help with Stevens guns please

Here's another of the old posts about the John Mann guns:

http://www.doublegunshop.com/forums/ubbt...r=6888#Post6888

Thank you for that link. I quickly ran through 23 pages of his posts but didn't see anything related to those guns. I probably scrolled too fast. The gun in that picture is the unfinished 20 gauge that I have. I guess he was separated from the 12 at some point. He sold the 16 & 20 to the person that I got them from. I will take and post a picture of the bottom of the receiver tomorrow when I get home from teaching the redfish a lesson. I really appreciate your help.

I find it interesting that the lumps appear to be laminate steel, i.e., like an old transformer body. Do you think that could actually the case or am I looking at it wrong?

Also, based on your handle; what kinds of snipe are you hunting, what types cover & how do you go about it? probably best in the misfires section, but it certainly piques my curiosity. The few I've taken were not easily hit & their flight patterns were quite unlike anything else I've hunted. Wilson's & jack snipe, but a long while back. I'm discounting my being left in the woods holding the gunny sack experience. Hope you will tell us something about your snipe hunting.

I have a 5100 series 16ga. w/the synthetic stock. It is color cased & different from your gun(s)in its side treatment.

The archives may not go back far enough to find the threads I'm thinking of. On the other hand it may be that John and I discussed these guns by email rather than on the forum.

Unfortunately I do not have records of our off-line conversations about these guns. Likewise my memory ain't what it ought to be...Geo

While I may be wrong, and often am,the gun doesn't seem to be engraved, to me.To my eye, it seems more like acid etching.
Mike

I think you're right,,It looks like an etched pattern of one type or another and not an engraved one.
Stevens (Savage) used etched 'engraving' on the gussied up 311 made as the Fox BSE and BST models,,some small amt's of scroll and game birds on the frame IIRC.


If the gun(s) were made in the R&D Dep't for testing and show 'n tell to the bosses,,they many times didn't have serial numbers stamped on them even if regular production did.
Missing a date code on the recv'r wouldn't be uncommon either. All sorts of strange configurations got put together in the different factory Research & Pocket Protector Dept's.
That goes for any business I'd guess.

Sometimes those one-of's surface outside the factorys when the shelves are cleared. Serial numbers are sometimes added at that time if necessary. Prior to Dec/68,,they were not on a shotguns.

Just my thoughts.

I wish you all would quit calling the Fox Model B a gussied up 311. There was no such thing as a Stevens 311 when the Fox Model B was introduced.

Both Savage Arms Corp. and its subsidiary J. Stevens Arms Co. began introducing several new guns in 1936. J. Stevens Arms Co. replaced their Stevens No. 330 and their Springfield No. 315, both of which used the G.S. Lewis Patent No. 1,136,247 action with its coil spring driven strikers, with the Stevens No. 530 and the Springfield No. 515. The No. 530 and No. 515 used a new action with internal hammers which rotated about an axle. They also introduced a Skeet Gun version --



These new actions were marked 5000 and 5100, the difference being in the top-lever and spindle. It appears the 5000 used up old top-levers and spindles from the G.S. Lewis action. Their cheaper double, the Springfield No. 311 (and many "trade brand" guns)continued to be made on the G.S. Lewis action.

The next year Savage Arms Corp. introduced their Model 220 hammerless single barrel, a Model 320 hammerless double barrel, and the Model 420/430 over-under. Anyone ever seen or have pictures of a Model 320??



Evidently the Model 320 wasn't the answer for a lower priced double for Savage to make at Utica along with the Ansley H. Fox line.

In 1940, J. Stevens Arms Co. introduced the Tenite stocked version of the No. 530 and called it the No. 530 M --



Meanwhile up at Utica, Savage added the Model B to their Ansley H. Fox offerings. It was the internal parts of the Stevens No. 530 put in a bit more nicely profiled receiver with some acid etching and a bit nicer wood than the No. 530.

Jump forward to Savage emerging from WW-II. They decided to consolidate their arms making operations at their J. Stevens factories at Chicopee Falls, Mass. while the factory at Utica went to making washing machines for the post-war housing boom. In the 1947 Savage/Stevens/Springfield/Fox catalogue the gun which had been called the Stevens No. 530 M before the war was now the Springfield No. 311 --



By the 1948 Savage/Stevens/Fox catalogue the Tenite stocked double gun was the Stevens Model 311 --



By 1951 the Tenite stocks were gone and the Stevens Model 311 got a wood stock. So, if anything, the Stevens No. 311 is a gussied down Stevens Model 530.

Mr. Newbern, the only thing on the bottom of the receiver is this small diamond.









TW, I have hunted snipe a few times. The only kind I have ever seen are the standards Wilson's variety. I know of one guy in Oregon that has killed two jacks. It has been documented and I have seen pictures. I have hunted them along the shoreline of lakes and in flooded pastures.

Skip, you are far too modest.
http://thesnipehunter.com/
Gil

Hmmm, either John Mann must have been correct about these being
pre-production prototypes or they may have been built before 1948 when the date code was adopted for all guns leaving the Stevens/Savage factory. I've never seen others like them. I think Mr. Snipe may have some very rare and maybe valuable guns!...Geo