Smoke810,
I looked in vain for any sign of a maker on the outside of the rifle. I would think, though, that anyone who put that much time into it would sign it somewhere. Maybe under the buttplate or in the action under the barrel.
The design kind of hearkens back to the Davenport, which also cradled the barrel in the frame, rather than screwing it into a hole in front. I would guess that whoever made it was limited to hand tools, a drill press and maybe a grinder. A pretty impressive project for anyone to undertake. Hope it shoots well; Stevens barrels held many records, especially the .22's. I understand one of those 414's won the 1912 Olympics.
Saw a Ladies' Model Favorite at the Santa Barbara Gun Show this weekend. Also a Stevens-Pope Ballard with Pope rear sight complete with mold and lube pump. Both way outta my price range, alas. A fair number of Favorites and a couple of plain-vanilla 44's.
You don't see a lot of 44-1/2's out in Arizona or California, and they don't seem to have much greater than token representation even at shows like Las Vegas. I've probably seen more Borchardt single-shots than high-grade Stevens 44-1/2's, and many more Ballards than all the high- and field-grade 44-1/2's combined, which is odd when collectors start talking about rarity and the huge numbers of rifles Stevens cranked out in the glory days. I've gone back to Michigan several times to that antique arms show in Novi, expecting that most of the Stevens were more popular back East, but haven't seen any more than the proportion of them that exists out here.
Someone's ratholing the dern things, and I demand an investigation
! One that doesn't cover the four 44-1/2's and the five 44s that I've managed to save from their greedy hands, of course.