Here is a No.49 (I am told) DST on a 44 action with a droopy lever. The engraving captured my attention, its way beyond standard and if original would be a unique special order job. I haven't seen the rifle first hand, but in the picture it looks like it may have silvered touches to the boars head and block and action screws. And, someone went to a lot of trouble to blue the frame around those features. I've never seen an engraved Stevens done that way and I suspect that is more recent work. But I also know the Stevens shop put out some pretty impressive custom work to if you paid for it.  Do any of you Stevens experts recognize this particular rifle and know any history on it? Its a 22LR I can't imagine that shot it loose. Maybe it was a switch barrel set originally, and suffered under some smokeless center-fire loads.

Yes indeedy, one truly glamorous bit of engraving.

Concur with Bent Ramrod, if there's anything less than about .003 of daylight between breechblock and barrel face when closed,  go ahead and shoot it.  (A typical sheet of printer paper is .0035".)

I use 5mm steel dowel pins to tighten up 44 linkages.  Ask and I'll send you details.  It does involve reaming the holes, and should be done on a drill press to keep everything square.

I'd love to add this one to my 44 database if you will share s/n and a few other features. 

Phil

Not  to put too fine a point on it though, if the rifle was properly fitted up to begin with, a droopy lever is  almost always a sign that the toggle linkage is worn.  Spring plungers in the lever and the screw in the breechblock leg are only ways of disguising a problem which ought to be fixed.  Stevens used these features to mask this weakness of the action, when what they should have done was to provide every single rifle with the lugged hammer, and made the link out of better steel, through-hardened.   

Oh, well, it gives us home gunsmiths something to do that makes a very satisfying improvement at modest cost   

Very nice rifle.

I want to think that the receiver was cold blued, then engraved.

The boar looked familiar. Then hours later it clicked. With some artistic license on the tusks it looks like the Boarshead Meat logo may have been the inspiration.

Well I finally got to study the rifle firsthand. It's an early, special order rifle alright. The front of the frame under the fore end is stamped "47" which is actually what you might expect if they pulled a fancy action off the line, to custom engrave. There are traces of gold leaf or gold wash in the belt line engraving, that outlines the frame. The animals on the frame are silver or pewter. The tang was never serialized having engraving but no numbers. The tang measures full original thickness, so I would say numbers were never ground down and polished away. The rifle has a full octagon barrel, with serial number 345X. The action is early, about right for the barrel S/N, featuring a lugged hammer/block and happily also the tension adjusting screw inside on top of the hammer. I turned it out some and the lever locked right up, no more droop. The buttstock has a nickeled #3 swiss butt plate on it. The original bore is mirror bright- lands are worn but still good. All in all, I think it's a pretty nice rifle!
Wish I had some background history on it but the people that had it don't know any.

Sooo beautiful! Now to shoot it.