Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Long Range Hunting Stevens 200 action build??????

Would it be dumb to do a custom LR build with a stevens 200 action???? Thinking 300 WM or .308.... Alot of the savage model 110 parts will work right?

It would be beyond dumb, but it's your money. Of all of the platforms to do a build on, why pick that one?

R.

Thanks for the laugh.

I'm building a LR hunter on a sevens 200 action. Actually, its the fire form rifle for my rem700 TMR is building for me.

I'll get a chance to shoot them side by side in a few months and report back to you.

The current F class champion team is team savage. Many will sneer, few will shoot better.

I have more expensive guns, purpose build to play tactical games or hunting. But dollar for dollar, the Savage stagger feed (same action as the stevens 200) is hard to beat.

Team Savage has been spanking the competition for a coupla years now.

Nearly all Savage parts will work on your Stevens.

Is your Stevens the older staggerfeed or the newer centerfeed?

There are more stock choices for the staggerfeed.

Good luck with your build.

Was speaking with a local guy I know... retired real estate guy..

He likes to play a lot with lead cast bullets in all sorts of calibers, especially odd ball stuff..

He typically plays with Stevens 200s, basically because they are cheap, and being an hobby machinist, he does most of his stuff at home..

Ben just had picked up one of the Savage Edges from Walmart recently, trying it strictly for the price...

He got one in a 308.... and has said he swapped a couple of barrels on it before he even shot the 308 barrel, just to see how the action compared with the 200..

He was indicating that the way the action is, he said the Edge was even better to do barrel changes on, because the action turned out to be much stiffer...

The 308 barrel he was shooting today was doing 200 grain Lead Cast bullets with a gas check at about 1900 fps... surprisingly they did a pretty good job at 100 yds...

after he wrapped up, he was over to a gunsmith buddy tho to tweek the trigger...

who'd a thunk it?

some folks are pretty comfortable with a gun that shoots good, you can bang it around, and not worry about it..

or play with it where you can swap barrels around all summer and then come fall hunting season, find a buyer for it for $150 to $175... so it only cost ya $75 to $100 to burn a barrel all summer...

Building a LR custom is not cheap, why start with the cheapest action.

It gets a lot cheaper when you can buy prefit barrels and put them on yourself without paying a gunsmith.

What's your smith charge to re and re a barrel?

R.

I might be jumping to conclusions here but from the question in in his post I don't get the impression that wyohunter99 will be doing much of the work himself.

No special talent needed to change barrels on a Savage.

My 7 year old can do it.

Don't know since I thread, chamber and fit my own barrels.

Nothing wrong with the Savage action. Changing a Savage barrel takes about as much time as changing a tire and only a little more skill.

Nice! My point being, for those of us that pay, it's not a whole pile of cash...


R.

Even a prethreaded and short chambered barrel will require more cash than a prefit Savage since the chamber is done and the shoulder is movable on the Savage.

Can't force myself to drink the Salvage cool-aid.

R.

They are far from the best looking action there is (downright ugly actually) but they are easy to work on, inherently accurate, inexpensive, and available.

They also have a fast locktime and there are plenty of aftermarket parts available.

then dont, its your loss.

they are good value for the money. not the best, but good enough to work.

It's not my loss at all, as I don't feel the need to drag junk out into the field. There are lots of better rifles to be had, both new and used, for the same amount of money. For my dollars invested, I would rather buy used good stuff, instead of new crap. It is less expensive that way, as I am only buying once. As far as the "not the best, but good enough to work" comment, if this were true, we would all field Mossy ATRS with Barska scopes. Why not, as they "work".
There always seems to be the need to pump up garbage as being superior to quality goods, citing price vs performance. A fella drinks some kool-aid, and drops some dough on a cheap rilfe, and runs some factory ammo out of it, and it shoots well, for the money, and all of sudden its a fantastic piece of kit that keeps up to full custom rigs?
Why would one back a design that is based around cost to build, and nothing more? I find that they are somewhat accurate, to be one the greatest manufacturing accidents of all time, as they sure as hell didn't start out that way.
Each to his own, and anyone can purchase whathever the hell they want with thier dough, but don't tell me that cheap junk is better than quality goods, just because it's cheap.

R.

Based on what measure? For accuracy, Savage is the best $$ for $$.

So if accurate rifle is the measure, you are probably dragging junk into the field if its not a Savage. Never owned one, I'll bet.

BTW, show me a better rifle, new or used, for the money.

I'll check back often, 'cuase this will take you a while.....