All of the factory records were burned by Westinghouse right after WW1, to avoid having them become evidence a Congressional inquiry.  

By my own survey, which I've only just started, a 46xxx  s/n would put it somewhere in the mid to late '20s.  I think.  Manufacture of the plain Model 44 ended in about 1932, (according to Frank deHaas).   The highest s/n I've seen on a .25-20, (so far) is 52xxx.   

It's possible to date some Model 44s a little closer, when they are in the 1894 to 1903 area, due to feature changes which can be correlated to dated catalogs.  Catalogs are the only signposts we have, unless somebody has an original sales receipt with date, or some other such document.

It's also pretty certain that anything in a caliber bigger than .32-20 is pre-1903. In that year they started with the Model 44 1/2, and dropped the 44 action for everything but .22LR, .25 Stevens, .32 Long RF, .25-20, .32-20, and maybe .25-21 on special order.

It seems to me that there were no obvious feature changes in run-of-the-bog Model 44s after 1903, but I haven't looked very hard at the post-WW1 (i.e. Savage ownership) period. 

Model 414, which used the 44 action, was 1912 to 1932.   The Model 417, which was .22LR only and had a plain round barrel and other features, started in 1933, when the 414 was discontinued, and ran until 1947.   I have read that serial numbers of those get into the 60xxx range.  Never seen one to verify, though.  

I'm open to correction on any statement I've made, so fire away.....

Phil W.

Thanks, I'll add that to the database.  Unless Stevens did some numbershuffling, that pushes  Rick's  back to early 20's. Maybe.

I have been doing the same o serial numbers.  From my records the 78xxx number should be a Savage marked rifle.

You can also list the 25-25 as made in the 6 o'clock 
extractor guns. I have serial number 3033x.

Det

Just added this one to the survey.   

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Go take a look, but cover your keyboard first, to keep the drool off it.

Yes, that's the way those scopes were mounted from the factory.   Note that there is no dovetail where the ordinary rear sight would have been.  They specifically say in one of my catalogs that the normal dovetail will be omitted when the scope is specified.

Det, mine has no sign of Savage markings on it, just Stevens on the action and J. Stevens Arms Co. on the barrel.

uscra112 wrote on Jun 9^th, 2014 at 12:07am:

I have seen the dovetail cut into the barrel just in front of the receiver for the rear ring itself to dovetail into, but hadn't encountered the rear barrel dovetail purposely cut larger than the dovetail size already existing on the rear ring itself. Seems strange to remove more metal than necessary, which then requires an adapter to "fill the gap", so to speak. From what I've encountered, for the front dovetail, the dovetail cut on the front ring was cut sized to fit directly into the existing large Steven's size front dovetail.
Always something new to see.