![Model Model](/uploads/1/2/6/4/126449744/245523527.jpg)
Possibly the 'A' in the serial number indicates first year of manufacture for that particular model as I've read similar questions about 311 model H's with serial numbers starting with a 'D'. But I don't know when the 311H first came out. I have a Stevens Model 311 Series H. There is the letter A in a circle and the letter G in another circle. In addition, there is a capital letter L and capital letter S nearby. A small 12X enclosed in a circle is also nearby. This is a 20 gauge. Serial number is A658xxx. Any idea what year this was manufactured?
Industry | Firearms manufacturer |
---|---|
Predecessor | J. Stevens & Co. (1864-1886) J. Stevens Arms & Tool Company (1886-1916) J. Stevens Arms Company (1915-1945) Stevens Arms (1945-1991 and 1999+) |
Founded | 1864 |
Founder | Joshua Stevens |
Headquarters | , |
W.B. Fay and James Taylor | |
Products | Rifles, pistols, shotguns |
Parent | Savage Arms |
Website | http://www.savagearms.com |
Stevens Arms was an Americanfirearms manufacturer founded by Joshua Stevens in 1864 in Chicopee Falls, MA. The company introduced the .22 Long Rifle round and made a number of rifle, shotgun, and target pistol designs. By 1902 they were advertising themselves as 'the largest producers of sporting arms in the world'.[1] They were purchased by New England Westinghouse on May 28, 1915 and again by Savage Arms on April 1, 1920.[2] As a division of Savage, Stevens continued to produce firearms at their Chicopee Falls facility until 1960 when the plant was torn down and Stevens production was moved into other Savage facilities. Savage dropped the Stevens name in 1991 but revived it in 1999 and still uses it today for a number of its low cost rifles and shotguns.
History[edit]
Stevens Arms was founded by Joshua Stevens with help from backers W.B. Fay and James Taylor in Chicopee Falls, MA,[3] in 1864 as J. Stevens & Co. Their earliest product was a tip-up action single shot pistol.[4]
Business was slow in 1870 when Stevens occupied a converted grist mill and had just sixty employees. The Panic of 1873 had a further negative impact on sales. By 1876 the company had recovered to the extent that it was then manufacturing twice the number of shotguns as it had been before that year.[5] In 1883 they purchased the Massachusetts Arms Company which Joshua Stevens had helped found in 1850.[1] In 1886, the company was reorganized and incorporated as J. Stevens Arms & Tool Co. The business was able to grow steadily with tool manufacturing and sales now accounting for the bulk of the business output.[4]
Stevens and Taylor were bought out in 1896 by I.H. Page, who was one of the new partners and the bookkeeper. Page led the company to significant growth, such that by 1902 Stevens had 900 employees and was considered one of the top sporting firearms manufacturers in the world. In 1901, Stevens entered into a partnership with J. Frank Duryea to produce the Stevens-Duryea automobile manufactured at a separate facility also in Chicopee Falls, MA. In 1915, Stevens led the U.S. arms business in target and small game guns.[4]
On May 28, 1915, New England Westinghouse, a division of Westinghouse Electric, purchased Stevens. New England Westinghouse was created specifically to fulfill a contract to produce 1.8 million Mosin-Nagant rifles for Czar Nicholas II of Russia for use in World War I. They needed a firearms manufacturing facility to accomplish this and chose Stevens. After the purchase, they sold off the tool making division, halted production of Stevens-Duryea automobiles, and, on July 1, 1916, renamed the firearms division the J. Stevens Arms Company. When the Bolsheviks deposed the Czar in 1917, New England Westinghouse was never paid, and it fell into financial distress.[1][6] They managed to sell most of the rifles to the U.S. Government and keep the Stevens firearms facility operational and did return to limited production of civilian firearms between 1917-1920 while looking for a buyer for Stevens.[7]
Stevens was purchased by the Savage Arms Company on April 1, 1920 with Stevens operating as a subsidiary of Savage but in a semi-independent status until 1942.[1] This merger made Savage the largest producer of arms in the United States at the time.[8]
Ammunition[edit]
in 1887, Stevens developed the .22 LRround,[9] which served as an introductory caliber for children for decades, as well as being very popular for plinking, varmint and target shooting. The .22LR cartridge was available beginning in 1888, in the #1, #2, #9, and #10 break-top rifles, and in their New Model Pocket and Bicycle rifles. The .22 LR would outperform other Stevens rounds, such as the .25 Stevens and .25 Stevens Short, designed as competitors, and offered in models such as the lever action single-shot Favorite (produced between 1894 and 1935) and the Crack Shot #15 (introduced in 1900).[10]
As several manufacturers would later do with other wildcats, Stevens adopted the .25-20, developed by Francis J. Rabbeth in 1882. The unpopularity of the bottlenecked case led Stevens to develop the .25-21 in 1897. Designed by Capt. W. L. Carpenter, 9th U.S. Infantry, the .25-21 Stevens was essentially a shortened version of the company's own .25-25 of 1895.[11] (This is an odd reversal of the relationship of the .38 S&W Special to the .357 Magnum.) The .25-25 would be used in Stevens' model 44 and the model 44½ rifles manufactured from 1903.[11]
Rifles[edit]
Stevens Arms advertisement
In 1880, the company began making falling blockrifles. These, though less well known than Ballard or Winchester firearms, were of comparable quality. They were priced lower than those of Ballard or Winchester, making the Stevens' falling block models competitive in the marketplace. Under names like Favorite, Little Scout, Crack Shot, and Marksman, Stevens sold millions of reliable single-shots. The total number of single-shot firearms manufactured by the company exceeded 3.5 million by 1892.[5]
Stevens, under the ownership of New England Westinghouse, produced over 770,000 Mosin-Nagant rifles under contract with the Russian government between 1916-1917, of which 225,260 were delivered. The rest were sold to the American government to arm the American Expeditionary Forces, White Russian forces, Finland, and the Civilian Marksmanship Program.[6][7]
The 416 had a dramatically oversized bull barrel and a large wooden stock. The heavy barrel design added a great deal of weight which compared unfavorably with larger rifles such as the military's various .30 caliber offerings. It had adjustable peep sight apertures, a hooded front sight, and a small, removable magazine.[12][13]
During World War II, Savage used Stevens' facilities to produce several military firearms including the Savage Lee–Enfield No. 4 rifle,[14] the Thompson submachine gun, the Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR), and the Browning M1919 and M2 machineguns.[12][13][15]
Stevens introduced the Model 87 in 1938, which sold over one million units. Further units were sold as the Savage Model 6 by Sears.[5]
Shotguns[edit]
Starting in 1872, Stevens began producing single-barreled shotguns based on their tip-up rifles and pistols. The first was the Model 30 offered in 14 gauge but soon followed by 10, 12, 16, and 20 gauges.[16]
In 1876, Stevens produced its first double-barreled shotgun, the Three Trigger Model, which used a third trigger to unlock the action, and was offered in 10 and 12 gauges.[16]
Between 1900 and 1916 Stevens produced 26 single-barreled shotgun models, eight exposed hammer double-barreled models, and seven hammerless double-barreled models including a sidelock design, the Model 250.[16]
Stevens 522 Trap Gun
In 1907, Stevens was approached by John Browning and offered the design of a pump-action, hammerless, take-down, repeating shotgun that would become the Model 520 and 620 shotguns.[17] The Model 520, easily recognized by its distinctive double-hump receiver, first appeared in Stevens' 1909 Catalog #52 and remained in production until 1939.[16][18]
In 1927, Stevens produced the Model 620, a streamlined version of the 520, and it remained in production until 1955. Stevens provided a prototype Model 520 trench gun to the American military in 1918 for use in World War I but it was never produced in quantity. Both the Model 520A and 620A were produced (as the M520-30 and M620) for military use during World War II, in trench, riot, and training variants. Over 45,000 were made during WW II and many remained in service through the Vietnam War.[19]
Stevens 511A shotgun.
Target pistols[edit]
Joshua Stevens produced three lines of single-shot tip-up target pistols named after contemporary gunmen.[20]
- Stevens-Conlin No. 38 – named for James Conlin, owner of a Broadway Avenue shooting gallery in New York City.
- Stevens-Lord No. 36 – named for Frank Lord, a prominent target shooter. Six hundred were produced from 1880 to 1886.[20]
- Stevens-Gould No. 37 – named for Arthur Corbin Gould, a firearms expert and writer.
Two well-known examples of the Stevens-Lord No. 36 were custom ordered by Buffalo Bill, serial no. 29 for himself and serial no. 32 as a gift for Ben Thompson. The deluxe set of pistols had ten-inch barrels chambered for .32 Colt, iridescent mother-of-pearl grips, and custom engraving with gold inlay by Louis Daniel Nimschke. The one given to Thompson included 'From Buffalo Bill to Ben Thompson' on the spine of the grip.[20]
An engraved, gold-plated Stevens-Gould No. 37 was given to sharpshooter Annie Oakley in the 1890s by her husband Frank Butler. The pistol had finely engraved dog and horse head motifs on both sides of the frame. The Stevens-Gould No. 37 was one of three embellished guns cased for Oakley as a presentation group.[21]
References[edit]
- ^ abcdVorisek, Joseph (1992). A Short Illustrated History of the J Stevens Arms & Tool Company. Cornell Publications. pp. 3–7.
- ^Vorisek, Joseph (1994). A Short Illustrated History of the Savage Arms Company 1895 to 1945. Cornell Publications. p. 4.
- ^Fjestad, S.P. (2009). Blue Book of Gun Values. Blue Book Publications. p. 1565. ISBN978-1-886768-87-1.
- ^ abcFlayderman, Norm (1994). Flayderman's Guide to Antique American Firearms. DBI Books. p. 209.
- ^ abcWallack, LR. 'Sixty Million Guns'. 1983. In Gun Digest Treasury, Harold A. Murtz, editor, DBI Books. 1994 pp.192-193, 195, 197 ISBN0873491564
- ^ abLapin, Terence. 'The American Mosin Nagant'. Mosin-Nagant.net. Retrieved December 12, 2015.
- ^ abVorisek, Joseph (1992). A Short Illustrated History of the J Stevens Arms & Tool Company. Cornell Publications. pp. 31–33.
- ^The Hardware review. Pentz Publishing Co. 26: 55. 1920.Missing or empty
|title=
(help) - ^Barnes, Frank (1976). Cartridges of the World. DBI Books. p. 274. ISBN978-0-89689-936-0.
- ^Barnes,(1976) p.276
- ^ abBarnes, (1976), p.74.
- ^ abKimmel, Jay (1990). Savage & Stevens arms: collector's history. Corey/Stevens. ISBN978-0-942893-00-7.
- ^ abCanfield, Bruce N. (1996). U.S. Infantry Weapons of World War II. Andrew Mowbray. ISBN978-0-917218-67-5.
- ^Skennerton, Ian (1993). Lee-Enfield Story: A Complete Study of the Lee-Metford, Lee-Enfield, S.M.L.E. and No.4 Series. Ian D Skennerton. ISBN978-0-949749-15-4.
- ^Canfield, Bruce N. (2000). U. S. Infantry Weapons of the First World War. Andrew Mowbray. ISBN978-0-917218-90-3.
- ^ abcdVorisek, Joseph (1992). A Short Illustrated History of the J Stevens Arms & Tool Company. Cornell Publications. pp. 64–68.
- ^Archer, Eric (1988). 'U.S. Military Shotguns of WW2'. Gun Digest.
- ^Stevens Firearms General Catalog and Component Parts #52 (Revised). J Stevens Arms & Tool Co. 1909. pp. 91–98.
- ^Canfield, Bruce (2007). The Complete Guide to U.S. Military Combat Shotguns. Mowbray Publishers. pp. 94–95, 117, 134–139. ISBN1-931464-28-6.
- ^ abcBicknell, Natalie and Tom (July 19, 2007). 'A Very Handsome Present from Buffalo Bill'.
- ^Autry National Center (January 12, 2012). 'Annie Oakley's Pistols'.
External links[edit]
- Media related to Stevens Arms at Wikimedia Commons
Retrieved from 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Stevens_Arms&oldid=897285526'
The Savage/Fox Model B Side-by-Side Shotguns
By Chuck Hawks
Savage Arms purchased the A.H. Fox Company in November of 1929. They kept the A.H. Fox gun in production until America's entry into the Second World War, 1942 being the last year an A.H. Fox retail catalog appeared. After the end of the war a few A.H. Fox guns were sold from existing warehouse stock, and some were assembled from remaining parts on hand, but the era of the original A.H. Fox gun was basically over.
However, back in the 1940's the Fox name had considerable market recognition, and in 1940 Savage capitalized on that by using the Fox name on a somewhat upscale version of their Stevens Model 311 side-by-side utility shotgun, which had been introduced in 1931. (Savage had purchased Stevens in 1920.)
The resulting gun, named the Fox Model B was introduced at a MSRP of $25.75. It was to be a long lived model, remaining in the Savage line until rising manufacturing costs and the sale and reorganization of Savage Industries, Inc. (which became today's Savage Arms Company) caused it to be discontinued in 1988. By that time the MSRP for the Fox Model B-SE had risen to $525.
The Model B was introduced in 12, 16, 20, and .410 bores. At some point in the early 1970's the 16 gauge was dropped, but the other three bores were available until the end. The usual barrel lengths were 30, 28, and 26 inches in 12 gauge and 28 and 26 inches in 16 and 20 gauge, although some guns with 24 inch barrels were sold. All .410 bore guns came with 26' barrels.
Standard chokes for all but the .410 bore guns were Full and Modified in 28 and 30 inch barrels and Modified/Improved Cylinder in 26 and 24 inch barrels. .410 bore guns were choked Full/Full. Other standard choke combinations were furnished by special order at no extra charge, at least in the early years.
All Fox Model B shotguns are side-by-side box locks of a simplified Anson & Deely type with a single underbolt and a Scott spindle top lever to open the action. Coil springs are used throughout and power the hammers and sears. The result is a somewhat bulky but very durable action that seldom needs repair. The sides and bottom of the frame are decorated by a simple etched 'engraving' pattern.
Like most American double guns except the Winchester Model 21 and much later Ruger Gold Label, Model B barrels were built on the through lump system. This is a satisfactory method of joining the barrels, but it produces a gun wider across the breech than the chopper lump, dovetail lump, or mono-block systems.
12, 16, and 20 gauge chambers were initially 2-3/4' in length, but 12 and 20 gauge chambers were later lengthened to 3'. All .410 bore guns came with 3' chambers.
All Fox Model B guns came with 'select' American black walnut stocks and forends. The wood that I have seen on these guns varied from plain to semi-fancy. A glossy wood finish was standard. These are short tang guns and a through bolt retains the stock. The forend is held in place by a self-adjusting spring tension latch that does not loosen with use.
Stocks are of the pistol grip type with a fluted comb and a corrugated black plastic butt plate. Most guns produced from the mid-1950's on came with a better defined and more graceful pistol grip than the early guns, and were fitted with a black plastic grip cap, although for a while in the 1970's the stock reverted to the earlier form sans grip cap. Forend style was initially a rather large version of the splinter type. This was eventually changed to a full beavertail forend, initially only on the single trigger models, but later the beavertail became standard across the board. Hand cut checkering in a simple pattern was used until sometime in the middle 1960's, when the change was made to impressed checkering in a somewhat fancier pattern.
The most common variations of the basic gun were the Model B (Mfg. 1940-86; black or color case frame, double triggers, extractors, plain rib later changed to vent. rib), Model B-ST (Mfg. 1955-66; case color frame, single non-selective trigger, plain matted rib, beavertail forend), Model B-DL (Mfg. 1962-65; a B-ST with a satin chrome-plated frame, vent. rib), Model B-DE (Mfg. 1965-66; similar to the B-DL with reduced checkering coverage), and B-SE (Mfg. 1966-88; similar to the B-DE with selective ejectors, vent. rib, select walnut and impressed checkering).
Model B frames were initially given a black gun metal finish, but before long were changed to a color case finish that remained standard until the guns were discontinued. Model B-DL guns were supplied only with satin chrome-plated frames. Model B-SE gun frames went from satin chrome to satin black to color case finishes as the years went by and styles changed. White line spacers at pistol grip cap and buttplate came and went. Today a Model B-SE in perfect (100%) condition will sell for around $750, according to the 25th Edition of Fjestad's Blue Book of Gun Values.
For around the first 20 years Model B guns had raised solid ribs. Later production, starting with the single trigger models but eventually also including the double trigger models, switched to a ventilated rib.
Following are some specifications for the Fox Models B and B-SE circa 1975 as provided by the Gun Digest and Shooter's Bible.
- Gauges: 12, 20, .410 bore
- Chamber length: 3'
- Locking system: Underbolt
- Frame: forged steel, color case finish, decorated on sides and bottom
- Trigger(s): Double (B); single selective (B-SE)
- Extraction/ejection: Positive mechanical extractor (B); selective ejectors (B-SE)
- Safety: Automatic, two position, tang mounted
- Barrel lengths: 30' (12 gauge only); 28' (12 and 20 gauge only); 26' (12, 20, .410)
- Sights: middle and front silver beads
- Chokes: 30' and 28' barrels Full/Mod. (12 and 20 gauge); 26' barrels Mod/IC (12 and 20 gauge); 26' barrels Full/Full (.410 only)
- Stock: checkered American walnut pistol grip style with black plastic butt plate
- Forend: American walnut beavertail style with impressed checkering
- Length of pull: 14'
- Drop at comb: 1-1/2'
- Drop at heel: 2-1/2'
- Weight: 7-1/2 lbs. (12 gauge, 28' barrels); 7-1/4 lbs. (20 gauge, 28' barrels); 6-3/4 lbs. (.410 bore)
- 1975 MSRP: $174.50 (B); $199.50 (B-SE)
The Fox Model B had a long production run and many were produced in numerous variations. They are still in widespread use today and are often seen in gun dealers' used racks. These guns were solid performers in their day and they still are. They seldom malfunction and they are usually easy to repair when they do.
This is not a slim, lightweight double gun built on the British pattern. Rather it is a solid American gun designed to shoot heavy American style shells and it has the weight and heft to do so with relative comfort.
Its primary competition in the market place was the Winchester Model 24 until about 1958 when that gun was discontinued. Although the two were functionally about equal, the Model B was a better looking and better turned-out gun than the Model 24.
Stevens Model 311 Serial Number Location
After the demise of the Model 24 inexpensive foreign made guns became the Fox Model B's main double gun competition. These were usually more graceful, but seldom as durable as the rugged Savage product.
The number of Savage/Fox doubles still in use is a testament to their solid design and the quality materials used in their construction.
Serial Number On Stevens Model 311
Note: Reviews of a 12 gauge Fox Model B-DL and a 16 gauge Fox Model B can be found on the Product Reviews page.