Thought you Steven lovers would like to see what a cast of the original barrel chamber looks like in my Stevens 44 .22LR.  The photo below of the rifle with the original barrel was taken shortly I purchased it around 12yrs ago.  I have since rebarreled it & changed the buttstock to use for .22 BPCR silhouette.  Not wanting to modify the original 26” barrel, I have it along with the Schuetzen-style buttplate to return to the original configuration if I ever decide to sell the rifle, which I doubt.  I considered shortening the original barrel & rechambering, but decided not to.

There was a long discussion about the rifle on this forum shortly after I bought it.  It was manufactured between 1916 & 1933.  Since it has a 5-digit serial #, the conclusion was it's a late made custom Savage Stevens.  BTW, that's a 8X J.W. Fecker scope which I continue to use, sans the return-to-battery spring.

Note the rather narrow & shallow rifling lands (only 0.001” high).  I used the original barrel in competition for some time with good success.  But the tighter match chamber in the new shorter (20”) Shilen ratchet barrel handles better for hitting the offhand BPCR chickens & results in slightly better accuracy for prone out to 200yds.

Wayne
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Doesn't really look all that shallow of rifling to me. And at .02170" bore and .2190" groove that's a .005" deep groove which seems pretty common depth for most .22 barrels. Very similar to the Green Mountain barrel I just had installed on my Ballard 3F, except I went with 27" length for iron sights.

Yes, you're right. It would be .0010".
Here's McGowan's website with .22 bore and groove info for their .22 rimfire barrels. .222" groove and .216" bore. They offer a wide variety of lands and grooves, and twist rates.

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majorfs45 wrote on Jul 3^rd, 2025 at 3:44pm:


For the ratchet barrel Tom Klinger (ASSRA member) did the barrel work.  He used a Freeland MG match reamer to cut the chamber.  BTW, I highly recommend his gunsmithing work.

Since we're discussing .22 rimfire chambers & bores, I thought I'd post the following chart.  No doubt it's be posted before but may be worth looking at it again

Wayne

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Interesting. TomK refurbished my Stevens 044 & 1/2, including a 5R Bartlein barrel and I couldn't be more pleased with his work (4th rifle Tom has done for me). Shot a personal best with it today. Tom had to do a bit of extra work to get the quite rare factory ejector to work properly and it is a real treat as it tosses case well clear of the action now that it has about 1000 rounds thru it. No more picking spent cases out by hand.