The Stevens
Model 311 didn't appear until after WW-II, when Savage consolidated all their arms manufacturing at the old J. Stevens factories in Chicopee Falls and the Savage plant at Utica, NY, went to making products for the post war housing boom. These G.S. Lewis Patent No. 1,136,247, granted Apr. 20, 1915, action guns used coil-spring driven strikers.
In 1936, J. Stevens Arms Co. began phasing in a new action marked 5000 and later when they went to a one-piece top-lever and spindle 5100. The G.S. Lewis action J. Stevens No. 330 was replaced by the J. Stevens No. 530. The Springfield No. 315 was replaced by the Springfield No. 515. The 5000 and 5100 action has internal hammers which rotate about an axle. In 1939, Savage took the internal parts of the J. Stevens No. 530 and put them in a slightly nicer profiled and decorated black gun metal finished receiver and fitted it with a bit nicer stock and called it the Fox Model B. Insert found in some 1939 Fox catalogs --
From the 1940 Fox catalog --
In 1940, J. Stevens Arms Co. introduced a version of the No. 530 fitted with a stock and forearm made of Tenite and called it the No. 530-M --
After the consolidation at Chicopee Falls, the gun that had been the No. 530-M through 1946, became the Stevens
Model 311 in 1948. By 1951, the Tenite stock and forearm were gone and the Stevens
Model 311 got the walnut finished wood stock and forearm.