Hi, what is this .22 Short Stevens I just bought (cheap)?  I studied it for several days, and cannot find any comparable ones.  That tells me it's been modified or is very uncommon.  What I think started as a 414 Armory model, has some unusual features.  Crescent butt, short fore arm, no sling swivels.  

I'm a little concerned that wood looks recently finished, there is a screw or fitting on the tang (no better pics), and that the drop of the stock is so steep it's going to be hard to hold and shoot.  What do you think? Could this be an original buttstock?  What is this rifle, or was it?

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Ah-so!  Bent tangs, I can almost see it, and think you're right.  Maybe I'll learn gunsmithing and get a torch on it....  But first it has to arrive.

Thanks.  I'll report back when I get it and take the stock off.  To me, the top one looks bent downwards, but the bottom one does not.  Which would be strange.  Also, if I bend them up, I presume the wood will have to be shaved to match the new angle, against the receiver?

I restocked my 414 but the original butt stock had been shortened and had an attachment point for a cheek rest as it was being shot with a scope. I'll take some before and after pics with both stocks and add them here later. I'm guessing that an original stock might have been halfway between my old one and my new long one. I'm assuming that my old one has been shortened but I believe that some felt that a shorter stock was more conducive to offhand shooting. Maybe someone with a 414 will check in with a measurement.

I feel I can do the woodwork, but not the tang metal bending.  That scares me.  May have to take it to a local gunsmith and ask him to heat and bend it.  But I'll know more once I get it, and will post more.

Good deal, thanks for showing that.

I’ve had two Stevens 44 1/2’s with bent tangs from shipping. Dang usps! The first one was shipped to CPA, and they fixed it for me. The second barreled action 44 1/2 was sent out for reboring, and when I got it back the top tang was bent. I used a piece of white pvc plastic pipe about 18” long, so it wouldn’t mar the tang, and carefully bent it back cold. I suggested using heat to bend the tangs on the 414, due to the 44 action being cast rather than forged. Never ship a barreled action when the action has tangs without really protecting the tangs, or better yet, leave them apart.

Model 44 receivers are malleable iron.  Cast iron that has been soaked at high temperature in an oxidizing matrix (usually mill scale, i.e. rust), long enough for most of the carbon to be  leached out. The oxygen combines with the carbon to form CO gas, which exits the vessel.  What's left is akin to a low carbon steel, but with some spherical nodules of carbon still in the metal.   

Heating to a dull red, or less, to bend the tangs will do it no harm.   

What you must not do is heat it to the point that the carbon nodules go back into solution, because the result when cooled will be a brittle, high-carbon steel.  I don't have any authoritative information about what that temperature is, but we can assume that it is above the temperature used for case hardening, and below that needed to fusion weld.  (It's pretty well known that welding malleable does dissolve the nodules, leaving the weld zone very brittle.)