Bill Lawrence wrote on Jul 31^st, 2018 at 4:09pm:


Of course--it was to him that I addressed my comment.

oodmoff wrote on Jul 31^st, 2018 at 5:26pm:


Further evidence, evidently, of inconsistency in placement of markings--Dellet just said above there were NO markings on the front of his rcvr.   

I knew we could get a question successfully answered in this thread...well played...well played.

I'm sorry, oodmoff, that we've only by counter-example sort-of answered your original question (and I stress "sort-of").  But Dellet's rifle, being earlier than yours (serial number 223x vs. 29xx) has thrown us for something of a loop with it's seemingly very unlikely "original" .25-21 chambering.

Now among us Old Boys and especially when it comes to Stevens material, loop-throwing and tangent-chasing seem to happen often, perhaps too often.

So I'm taking a feeble stab at getting back on track.

By any stretch of the imagination, assuming the correctness of that .25-21 chambering, could the "22" be a twist rate?

Bill Lawrence

Bill please understand my comment was in jest, I appreciate all the knowledge put forth thus far, including the nurse/nun info.

Certainly how Dellets rifle came to be may never be known.  The odds of it being a factory re-barrel are probably higher than as it being a "later" parts on hand assembly, but that probably isn't completely out of the realm of possibility.  I have seen rifles roll stamped "Rebored by J Stevens" but never have seen anything indicated that it was "re-barreled" by Stevens.  Perhaps someone else has.... Given how accommodating Stevens was to other makers and custom orders and the odds or ringing a barrel in the day...its odd they wouldn't make a stamp to say such, thus its more likely in my opinion that they may have just rebarreled and matched the serial number.  But again I am speculating.   I would suspect a twist rate more along 1 in 12 or 14...  22 seems extreme.   Could be a barrel worker number...

btw thanks for the photos

Oodmoff, I knew you were jesting; so was I, somewhat.  But the apparent purposeful destruction of the Stevens factory records often leaves us with severe cases of frustration characterized by overdoses of speculation over even the seemingly simplest questions.

In a slightly earlier conversation concerning a Ballard with both Pope and Stevens stamps, the group more or less came to the opinion that Stevens had "re-bored and re-rifled by" and "re-barreled by" but no "barreled by" stamps to identify work done on guns other than their own.

But when it came to rerifling, rechambering, replacing, or adding barrels to one of their own guns, as you note, Stevens apparently left no tracks behind on the guns themselves.

Damn the destruction of those factory records!

Bill Lawrence

I have 2023 and 2459 in my collection.  Neither one has any markings at all on the receiver, other than the s/n on the tang. 

S/n 2023 has the one line mark on the barrel, with 1886 patent date.  It has no caliber mark, no barrel weight mark, and the s/n is stamped in a much smaller typeface than the receiver.  The original chambering appears to have been .22 Harwood Hornet, so I want to think that this barrel was fitted and chambered by Harwood himself, but of course this is only a guess.   

S/n 2459 has the two-line barrel rollstamp with the APR 17 94 patent date, and s/n from the receiver is repeated on the barrel in the same script style.   Barrel is chambered .32 Ideal and is so marked.  No weight number.

I have logged no fewer than 15 rifles between 2000 and 3000, and while for several specimens I was unable to get the barrel marking at all, s/n 2144 and above all have the two-line APR 17 94 mark.