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

I am trying to identify a couple of Stevens guns. They look like a 5100 to me but the engraving and blued receiver seem unusual. One is a 16 gauge gun and it finished. The other gun is a 20 gauge and it is in the white and the stock is stained but has no finish. Have you seen others like this? I had both temporarily but now I only have the 20 gauge gun. I am posting pictures of both. You should be able to tell by the finish which one you are looking at. Except for the recoil pad on the 20 gauge gun and the finish they are indentical.


The 16 gauge gun

They appear to be 311's that somebody has customized with engraving and restocks.

Phil, I was told they left the factory that way. The 20 gauge gun hasn't been finished. I was told by the person I got them from that there is also an identical 12 gauge gun. I don't know anything about Stevens guns but it seems odd that there are no serial numbers. I included pictures of the stampings but there are no numerical serial numbers on either of those guns.

You think it might be a B-DL model?

http://www.chuckhawks.com/fox_B_shotguns.htm

Mike

p.s.
http://www.gunbroker.com/Auction/ViewItem.aspx?Item=440288866

They're factory 311 guns. John Mann used to have a prototype slug gun with the identical engraving.

Your guns may have no serial numbers because they were built in the pre-1968 years before the Gun Control Act. If they were built after 1948 they may have a factory date code. If so it will be located either just in front of the trigger guard or just behind the knuckle on the bottom of the frame.

The code will be a letter and number inside a circle or oval roughly stamped in the metal. "A" represents 1949 and each subsequent alphabet letter represents a succeeding year. "O" and "Q" were not used.

After 1968 they had serial numbers...Geo

Oh, the number is the month.

John Mann had those two guns plus the identical 12 gauge gun. I would be interested in anything you know about them or the name of someone else that might.

The 12ga was the slug gun, with rifled barrels. He posted about the guns a number of times on this forum. John died several years ago. A search of his posts under the 'user list' area at the top of this page might get you to the posts which might answer your questions about the guns...Geo

p.s.: did you find the date code?
p.p.s.: Doug Mann who posts here sometimes is a cousin of John's and may know more specifics.

I don't know what the numbers mean. Only half of the pictures I posted are showing up so I will re-post some of the unfinished 20 gauge. If you can tell anything from the stampings please tell me what they mean. I also looked for a Stevens collectors group to see if someone out there would be interested in something out of the ordinary like this but I couldn't find anything with a quick online search.

One of John Mann's posts regarding your guns is here:

http://www.doublegunshop.com/forums/ubbt...46214#Post46214

The rest of the factory codes on the flats are a mystery. Your pictures do not show the bottom of the frame where the date code is located...Geo