The version which used the screw as a stud could be later versions, as it appears that the 1894’s utilized this same hole & spacing for attaching it’s mainspring. Stevens Favorite 1889 Hammer & Mainspring, drawn to size On the later type, many times the rear of the mainspring may have a slight convex radius where it abuts the abutment screw to keep it from sliding off sideways. This flat is what is needed to clear the rear of the hammer when cocked. The mainspring goes in backwards from what you may imagine, in that the flat end goes forward. Some abutments were cast into the inside of the lower tang, (presumably the earlier versions) while others used a thick headed screw. The mainspring for this version is a thin lazy “S” shaped spring that the rear just snaps in front of a abutment lug on the lower tang. The sideplate style would make sense from the manufacturing standpoint, in that when getting a new model into production, it would have been easier to make it this way to get a prototype up & going faster. Apparently it is screwed into the inside LH side of the receiver & activated by the breechbolt’s link pin that is slightly extended
The extractor hook is at a 35 degree angle. It has a recessed screw head that acts as a pivot point. The extractor is a 7 o’clock style different than any others. The mainspring appears to be the same as the 1889 & has the cast in lug on the bottom tang as a rear abutment for the spring. The breechblock is longer than any of the subsequent models. The lower part of the frame under the barrel extends forward enough in front of barrel shank abutment to accommodate the barrel takedown screw. The sideplate is on the RH side of receiver, held on by 5 screws, 3 of which are the trigger, hammer & finger lever pivot screws. However recently a customer sent an action in for us to examine. Since there are so few of them out there, I had about given up hope of ever seeing one. In Frank de Haas’s book, Single Shot Rifles & Actions in chapter 17, he covers a 1889 Sideplate version. 270 dia.īuttplates appear to have been made of black hard rubber. 214 and a head size smaller in relationship to the body of. These wood screws are 1.050″ in length with a body dia. Standard sights on the 1889 & 1894 were fixed with the rear being just a triangular metal section & not adjustable for elevation.Īll versions utilized a wood screw on each of the top & bottom of each tang to secure the buttstock in place. This model designation was never stamped on the gun however & was only mentioned in the sales catalog. The barrel & or sights were what determined the different models. The later guns bore different model designation, as say (17, 20, 27). The early guns that had a part octagon barrel only had it on the top of the barrel, stopping at the front of the forearm, while the barrel under the forearm wood was round. However they could have been had in round, round/part octagon, or octagon in different lengths. We won’t cover barrel configuration in detail here at this time, as we are more interested here in identifying the actions & the internal parts used in them. What I am saying is that no one really knows how many of these guns were made or even a numbering sequence. Some manufacturers would assign higher numbers at the start of a model to fool the competition into thinking they were making a lot of guns. Now this is not to say that these letters were in alphabetical order either. When that upper number was reached for that letter, they picked another letter & started over.
J stevens 22 single shot rifle serial number lookup series#
It is suspected that the factory used a series of letters & numbers to some preset upper number like say 1,000 or 10,000 or even 100,000 & assigned a letter to that block of numbers, like A, F, or W. There is no real way to tell anything by a number or combination of numbers & a letter that appears to possibly be a serial number.
Most guns were made in either 22RF, while 25RF or 32RF calibers were offered. These older Favorite series had a total of 4 different versions of extractors. There appear to be basically 4 main different versions of the Favorite, the 1889, 1894, 1915, & the 418 with other sub variations made at the productions start & then again at the end. So, you will see words like appears, may, could, possibly, assumed, etc. This article is not meant to be the BIBLE, in that many times if something is printed, there may later be some gun show up to prove us wrong. These firearms evolved basically with many internal running changes happening over the time span that the guns were in production. Upon activating the lever, the breech block pivots, or swings down to expose the chamber. This type of rifle action is known as a pivoting block type, or swinging block, since the breech block is pivoted on a pivot screw in the mid section of the receiver.