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.

Thanks, yes, it has the 7:00 extractor. I meant to include that detail in my post, glad you brought that up.

Serial on barrel is 345X.
The action isn't serial numbered, so I can't be sure the barrel is original to the frame. It appears it might be, by condition and fit.

Could it just be that an older S/N barrel from a 44 was fitted to it?

I knew the 2-piece pivot screws were a later feature, just didn't realize how much later in the S/N range.

I saw the 7-o'clock extractor, lugged hammer and tension adjusting screw and figured early frame.  Do you know about when they quit putting the tension adjusting screw in the block leg? I have a square notch frame rifle that has it, and the side extractor if I remember right.
I think it is S/N 259X if memory serves.

How long is the barrel? If it’s an odd length it may give a clue to as being set back or not. And does it have the Stevens address roll mark and 22 LR roll mark?

breech open

markings

Yes, that's certainly the lugged hammer.

If you go to fit a non-original Stevens barrel to a 44 frame, the barrel almost always has to be trimmed to get it to index correctly.  Stevens never "clocked" their barrels like Winchester did.  At most, the barrel would have to be set back one turn, which is .050".  More likely a lot less than that.   Impossible therefore to judge whether it's the original barrel with a tape measure.   

Have you looked under the forearm yet for any extra marking?
Too bad that there isn’t a serial number on the lower tang, it would solve some of the mystery of this rifle.

I do know that a full octagon barrel is going to be a scarce one on a Stevens, it only cost an extra $2.00 as listed in catalogs, I am surprised you don’t see more of them around.

Nice rifle. Thanks for posting.

Regards,
Powderman

Your barrel appears to be a #3 or probably a #4 weight barrel, certainly not a #1. Stevens  mis-marked barrels must be relatively common, I have a #45-44 1/2 in .32 ideal that is marked a #2 that is obviously a #3, and a 44 1/2 in .25-20ss that is marked a #1 that is actually a #2, and I think another one that is also marked a #1 that is a #2, but I can’t remember what it is without digging some rifles out.

Does anyone have pictures or drawings of the Pope mounts?
I might try to make a set for this rifle if I had some info. My machine shop is similar vintage to Pope’s, so if he could do them I’m pretty sure I can too. I plan to mount one of my older Stevens or Lyman scopes anyway, it would be neat to use the Pope notches rather than the blocks.

Sorry, that would be neat but I have no line shafts in the ceiling.  Probably my oldest mill is a Van Norman no. 1/2 duplex from the late 90’s early 1900s period. But even it got converted at some point, by hanging a motor on the side with v-belt step pulleys. All my old machines got re-done with independent drives at some stage to extend their usefulness. One really old neat looking no name horizontal mill I use, got a vertical Bridgeport M-head installed in place of the over-arm. I think that was a common thing to do back in the 30’s-40’s. It does get hard to find collets for this stuff sometimes! I do have some lineshafting with clutch and plain pulleys and hanger bearings. I always intended to set my oldest lathe (F.E. Reed 1890’s) and some others up like that. But, it was converted to overhead motor drive too so I probably never will. Too many projects and not enough time is my problem.

Steamtractor wrote on Jan 13^th, 2021 at 5:52pm:


I have a Zettler Bros. Ballard #6 Schuetzen with Pope mounts, and as far as I know the only Pope bases I've ever seen to use his mounts without using his cuts in the barrel. The bases are made with semi circular edges to allow the Pope mounts to clamp them. 
Pope mounts were unusual as the rear ring has a backwards left hand thread for windage so that it adjusted the same rotation for windage adjustment as a typical iron sight did. Pope said this made it less confusing to switch from iron sights to scope with his rings.
The cuts are seen frequently on Pope barrels, and Stevens-Pope barrels, but not on all. And I have proof that these cuts were also found on other barrels too. I own a Schoyen Ballard that has a very heavy #5 weight .32-40 barrel with the Pope cuts in it.
This particular Ballard had all sorts of extra dovetails and holes for various scope mounts, showing the owners must have tried all sorts of mounting styles from the Pope mounts, to dovetail mounts, to plain old scope mounts of various spacings. I fixed all the extra holes and dovetails, but left the 7.25" spaced set, and the Pope cuts before I had Al Springer rust blue the barrel.

Sheesh!  It looks like someone experimented with three different types of mounts on that Stevens barrel.  The semi-circular cut is like the one Pope mounts use, but it seems a bit deeper than expected and to have been cut slightly off center.

Bill Lawrence

I agree with Bill. While they're Pope style, they certainly don't look like what my guns have, nor like the smaller and cleaner cuts done by Pope.

Thank you sir.   Tim