Stevens 311, 20 ga.

[CajunBass]

Anybody know of a way to date a Stevens 311? It must have been made before 1968 because it has no serial number that we can find.

It's got 28" barrels, so it's probably choked Mod/Full. Chambers are 2 3/4" only. The stock appears to be walnut, with no checkering. Double triggers of course. It locks up tight as a tick, and appears to be in very good condition for one of these guns which normally look like they've been rode hard and put up wet. Even the color case hardening on the receiver is still nice.

I'm sort of a sucker for double 20's, so it's already on layaway, I was just wondering in anyone knew anything about marks on the watertable or anything like that that might help date it.

 

[Armored farmer]

I agree the 20ga sxs is the "golden mean" of doubles.
They just feel right.
Congrats on finding and anchoring a classic.

 

[entropy]

About all I can add is that since the stock isn't Tenite, it probably isn't from the Forties or early Fifties. Nice find! I had a 12 with a Tenite stock, and a 16 with wood. My Dad had the 16 cut down to 20" barrels, it was an awesome grouse gun.

 

[Virginian]

I had a 20 just like that, but I got into duck hunting and used a borrowed 311 also with walnut furniture in 12 gauge a lot too. Both did well for me. Solid workmanlike doubles. They weren't Purdeys, but they weren't priced like it either.

 

[Bushpilot]

Hey Cajun, here is a link to a really useful pdf file that has serial numbers, dates and date codes for a wide variety of different types of guns.

page 2384 lists the Stevens 311 w/o any letter suffix....

http://www.nramuseum.com/media/940941/serialization-date of manufacture.pdf

Here is another link to a post by yargerm, about 2/3 of the way down the page, that has info on those 311's with and without a letter suffix ;

http://www.shotgunworld.com/bbs/viewtopic.php?t=176056

Hope some of this is helpful to you...

 

[CajunBass]

Thanks everyone. With a little help from you good folks on the internet, I've been able to determine that it was made in 1956, and I decided to just bring it on home.

I cleaned a bunch of "crud" from the barrels. They're as shiny as new pennies now. Then wipe down, followed by a coat or two of Ren Wax and the old girl looks good enough to take out in polite company.

Lousy pictures. Sorry.

 

[Armored farmer]

Very nice.
Seeing your sxs reminded me that my good friend had one just like it.

 

[bannockburn]

CajunBass

Nice find! Thought about getting a 20 gauge 311 back in the day when I was doing a lot of grouse hunting. A decent and affordable SxS that handled okay for me. Ended up going with a 20 gauge Remington 870 instead but sure would have liked to have had one of those 311s too!

 

[PapaG]

The 20 gauge 311s were much handier and less clunky than the 12s. I had a 5100, the predecessor which I gave to #2 boy. #1 got an AYA in 20 ga. I kept the AYA 410.
Small bore doubles are just plain fun.

 

[wgp]

Hope it works out for you. I bought a new 311 20 ga several years ago to try out the SxS format, and it felt good and was affordable. However, I couldn't hit anything with it and upon patterning the gun discovered it did not shoot in the same zip code as point of aim. Sold it soon after (and I warned the buyer about the issue, he did not care).

 

[Sistema1927]

That is really nice. A birth year gun for me.

 

[Captcurt]

I get one in on consignment occasionally. They don't stay online long when they are priced right. Congratulations.