Old stevens double barrel 12 guage

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Waterboy3313

Waterboy3313

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Yesterday my dad gave me a a couple of my grandfather's guns. One was an old Stevens 12 guage. My dad says it's from 1940s to 1950s. I'm just curious to the time frame when it was actually made.
It has a tenite (I think) stock.

I was shooting it about 20 years ago probably last time it was fired and it had an issue. I gave it back to my dad and he had it repaired by a local gun smith. Fast forward 20-21 years and I got back.

I don't really have a desire to shoot it anymore but I got back and now that I'm older I have questions about it's age.

I haven't had it my possession for much over 24 hours and being it was Christmas I didn't get much time to go over it. I didn't even see a serial number on it.
 

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It might not have a serial number. Tenite stocks were late 40's to about 1958, and yours definitely has one of them. I had one very much like it as a kid, it was my second duck gun. I complained about the bolt action 20 ga that was my first duck gun, and not getting a second shot off, so that's what my dad got me. It kicked pretty hard, the stock weighs nothing. I quadrupled on bluebills with that gun, and only one shot!
They are good solid guns, not fancy like some SxS's, but a great working gun for duck blind or upland trails. I also had one in 16 ga. later, wish I still had that one.
 
Tenite Trivia:
I had a TVA coworker who worked The Hump during WWII.
The cargo planes were equipped with Tenite stocked Stevens .22-.410s for jungle survival if forced down in the wilds of Burma.
Some REMF decided that the lead shot in the .410 shells might be taken as a violation of The Hague Accords if a crew were captured by the Japanese and took the shot shells off the planes, leaving only the special order military jacketed .22 LR.
My coworker was able to bring one home when demobbed. I was unable to talk him into selling it to me.
 
Tenite Trivia:
I had a TVA coworker who worked The Hump during WWII.
The cargo planes were equipped with Tenite stocked Stevens .22-.410s for jungle survival if forced down in the wilds of Burma.
Some REMF decided that the lead shot in the .410 shells might be taken as a violation of The Hague Accords if a crew were captured by the Japanese and took the shot shells off the planes, leaving only the special order military jacketed .22 LR.
My coworker was able to bring one home when demobbed. I was unable to talk him into selling it to me
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I would like to see a picture of that.
 
Very nice. I have one marked Savage / Stevens Westfield Mass and is marked a model 311C. According to one site I researched briefly it was made in 1951. It was purchase lightly used in a hardware store in N.C. in the late 1970's. Link to site where I found a little info, perhaps some could be useful.
 
Awesome thank you. I was just going through the rest of the stuff that came with it. It came with two belts fully stocked with squirrel and rabbit shot, 6 slugs and about 5 full boxes of different game loads and one empty hunting vest. Lots of Remington peters shells along with some winchester.

I'm willing to bet all of it is older than I am.
 
Looks a lot like my stevens 22-410. Mine was made in '50 I believe. Great working guns. Be careful with the tenite. It can be brittle with age.

I think they stopped stamping J Stevens Arms Company after '48 and went to just Stevens.
 
Sorry, I never got even a look. I assume his son in law inherited it when he passed.

Anecdote Alert.
A non gun love story.
His daughter asked an interesting guy why he didn't show more attention.
He replied "We are first cousins and cannot get involved." I think first cousin marriages still illegal here at the time.
She responded "Dummy, I am adopted, we are not blood relations. Kiss me, you fool."
I made up that last part, but they did get married.
 
They make great coach guns...That's what I did with one I picked up for cheap...
 
There is a lot of interesting info in the link posted by LaneP. I had no idea stevens was bought out by savage.

My dad told me a funny (I thought it was funny) story about this shot gun and my grandfather. He had a mole in his yard one day so he went out and stomped the dirt pile back down. Then he got his shotgun and his folding lawn chair and sat there for several hours. When the mole cleared the dirt back out my grandfather pulled both triggers at the same time. I can picture this in my head and see him almost flying over the back of the chair. He wasn't very big or usually the most patient person so I got a good laugh out of it. He's been gone for just over 5 years now. Couldn't have asked for a better grandfather. He would have been 98 last week I'm glad I have something cool that was his.
 
I used my 16 ga. 311 to decapitate a rabbit my friend had gut shot, then he freaked out when it screamed (rabbit screams are blood-curdling, they sound very human), so I walked over, put my foot on it's hind legs, put both barrels just over the back of the head, and pulled both triggers. No more screaming.
I had a habit of pulling both triggers on that 16 sometimes, (not on the 12, only did that once!) I have a nice little arthritic lump on the knuckle of my right trigger finger because of that. I don't recommend pulling both triggers at once.
The image from your story brings me a smile.
 
In the late 70's and into the 80's the southern US was experiencing a massive over population of blackbirds. There was a point I could walk up to a tree full of them (new hatches apparently) and take out 2 or 3 with my 311C before the rest would wise up and bolt. Their migratory columns (miles long) would pass overhead in the evenings and I could take out one, sometimes two if I got lucky, with a load of #6 from the full choke left barrel. The column would split in half and the lead would keep traveling same direction and the other half would reverse direction. There were literally thousands and thousands of birds in these columns, and I have seen nothing since.

Then they got wise and increased their altitude to the point I couldn't touch them with anything, and they knew it. It was amazing how they adapted to this human "threat". At one point I bought an Ithica 10 gauge full choke single shot and even that couldn't reach them.

My understanding was sometime in the mid-80's the US Army undertook an operation to spray them with a chemical that defeated the water repellency of their feathers and they would freeze to death at night, or so I heard. It must have worked because there was never anything to that level of over population since that I'm aware of. But I got a lot of range time with that 311C in the process.
 
Yup, I did that too. A friend and I went through six boxes of shells one day, (I always bring more ammo than I go through, this is the only time I didn't) dropping blackbirds 2, 3, even 4 at a time. The field in front of us was littered with them. I'm sure the coyotes, fox, etc. were very grateful.
 
Check post #19 in this thread, it gives date codes for Stevens shotguns https://www.thehighroad.org/index.php?threads/new-to-me-stevens-311a-looking-for-info.863708/

The tennite stocks were supposed to become fragile with age, so some care should be given.
Click to expand...

That's great now I'm going to have to look. This could be the oldest fun own if it was made before 1945.

As far as the stock goes I'm not too worried as I feel like I don't know if I should even try to shoot it. I don't do much shotgun shooting but I do have a more modern 12 guage I bought new 20ish years ago. This thing is so long it will not fit in my safe.
 
Howdy

Serial numbers on firearms were not required by Federal Law until the Firearms Act of 1968. Previous to that, most firearms manufacturers serialized their products as a matter of course, but it was not required.

I bought this 16 gauge Stevens Model 311 many, many years ago when I was in college in upstate New York. It has no serial number. I asked the question about serial number's when I bought it, which is when I found out about the GCA 1968 requirement regarding serial numbers. This one has a wooden stock, but this particular model was manufactured for many years and I have seen them with Tenite stocks.

No idea specifically when this one was made, other than I bought it used probably around 1970 or so. Notice there is a 'dutchman' in the stock where it has been repaired. Notice it was made in Chicopee Falls, Mass, which is not far from Westfield.

poiu5RzNj.jpg




This shotgun had been sitting unused in the back of my closet for 20 or 30 years when I brought it to my first Cowboy Action match around 2000 or so. The locking lugs between the barrels do not work very well for fast reloads in CAS, so these guns are not very popular in CAS. I eventually bought a much older Stevens hammer gun for CAS, but the Model 311 is still in my safe. I have a 12 gauge one too.

pmyUhdLMj.jpg
 
Driftwood Johnson said:
No idea specifically when this one was made, other than I bought it used probably around 1970 or so. Notice there is a 'dutchman' in the stock where it has been repaired. Notice it was made in Chicopee Falls, Mass, which is not far from Westfield.
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Click to expand...
If it says Chicopee Falls, it was manufactured prior to 1960. Savage moved production of the Stevens guns from there to Westfield in 1960. If you look on the bottom of the receiver, near the hinge, you should see a small circle with a letter and a number inside. They are sometimes poorly stamped or worn , and hard to read. The letter is the date code, starting in 1949 with an "A". The date codes do not use I, O or Q, as they are hard to distinguish from numbers. My Fox Model B 20 gauge double was manufactured in 1950 (B):
DSC08144.JPG

These guns are easy to work on (and may need it from years of shooting). The right barrel gets much more use than the left, so a common issue with them is failures to fire on the right, usually from a worn firing pin. The hammers will sometime break, too. Most all series of Stevens 311/5100/Fox B use the same hammers and firing pins and hammer springs, the extractor fork differs in several models, but you can go to Numrich Gun Parts and pull up schematics of the actions.
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This gun was in fairly rough shape when I bought it, had to find a replacement hammer and firing pin for the right side, and the stock had a split behind the receiver. I also have these shotguns in 16 and 12 gauge, which are a bit newer (mid 1960's).
 
Nice primer on your basic boxlock SxS, bangswitch! I had to learn the hard way-I took one apart for a re-blue, didn't take pics, and Numrich didn't post the schematics at the time. I did have a Gun Digest J.B. Wood book at my disposal, but it was still not easy. I've worked on a few since, so they seem easy now.
 
I looked for the date code this morning. Lighting was not great and I was in a hurry. The circle was easy enough to make out but the letter is either worn off I just couldn't see it.

It could be the oldest thing I own if it's older than my 8mm.
 
I did a double check after work today. If it's in just the right angle I am pretty sure I see a K inside the circle.
 
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