Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Savage Collectors J.Stevens ID

No markings on stock and when someone refinished it they sanded down the inside and painted it black.

Gene I'll try moving to safe again,played with different ways on it earlier but maybe missed that one.

Well I was able to get it on safe,not the easiest with just the little knob to pull on and close to the stock,big mitts don't help either but feel better with it on safe. Thanks

Now is there a way to disassemble, don't really want to knock out any pins.

Be nice if the knob on the bolt had a little rod welded on it to use for cocking and to help put on safe

I don't know what model that is, but I have seen one like it that belonged to a neighbor of my family when I was a kid. Mr. Howard was a older man who ran a trap line and had an old, worn, cut-down Stevens single shot bolt gun in .22 WRF that he carried in his pack basket to kill fishers, foxes, and 'cats. He was the reason that I shot .22 WRF ammo in my Savage 24 and 65 when I was hunting something that I wanted to eat and saved the .22 WMR ammo for varmints..

Danny, I have a couple older Savage Model 3's with a bolt very similar to yours, they have a cocking piece that looks larger but otherwise the same. They appear to be made so they cannot be disassembled completely, there are two blind pins in the ones I have and I see no way to remove them.

ADDED- I pulled my rifles out and what I have are B versions, a Savage 3-B and a Stevens 53-B, yours is an earlier version. Mine do have a larger cocking knob which may have been part of the upgrade for the B version, I assume there also was an 'A' version of both? Catalogs never list the alpha character.

One is a special 53-B made for Montgomery Wards. It's marked 'STEVENS' '53-B' on the top of the barrel, 'Wards Westernfield' on the receiver and 'STEVENS Buckhorn Rifle' on the underside of the barrel just in front of the forearm.



Montgomery Ward's had Mossberg scopes made under their own name and this Stevens rifle is drilled & tapped for them.

Not that it is dirty but if it gets a little friction started what would be something good to soak it in and would it dissolve the gunk.

Danny, would give it a squirt or two of lighter fluid in the area(s) of concern and then wipe the entire bolt down with a lightly oiled rag.

Another question since it puts a lot of force closing the bolt and compressing the firing pin spring I have held the trigger back, close the bolt then cock it. Is this a bad idea? Just don't want to break the bolt handle. Since I was informed how the safety works it seems like less stress on the bolt. Thanks for everyone's help help in clearing things up.

Went out and shot a few rounds and it's fairly accurate. A question though is this made to cock when closing bolt, it's quite hard and don't want to break off the bolt if it's not suppose to cock like that.

Dannyl, I looked at your pictures again and your bolt should cock on open and not on close, the angle cut in the rear is supposed to cam the lug on the bottom of the bolt back and into a rounded indent that holds it cocked. My thought are that the indent may have worn where it would not hold it cocked and a previous owner ground off the inside of the prong on the cocking knob to keep it from uncocking with the action open. I've heard of the ident wearing to the point it will not keep the bolt cocked and that becomes a real problem, you need two hands to close the bolt, one to turn the cocking knob to the correct position and hold it and one to then close the bolt.

Sounds about right Gene and thanks. The way I started doing it is I hold the trigger while closing the bolt which closes easily then when wanting to fire pull the bolt back and it locks. If not doing it this way it's just a matter of time before the bolt handle gives and breaks I think.

Gene do you do work on these bolts? Now it appears something broke and it will not fire. Bolt locks back and when you pull the trigger there isn't enough force and it's very noticeable in the sound when it goes forward. I see under the bolt there is a pin that floats, I think it's the firing pin. In my pictures at the beginning of thread the 5th pic down, at the bottom of pic it shows the little pin I'm referring to.

Danny, If it's the short pin, that's the ejector. Like I mentioned before these bolts have blind pins holding them together and I know of no way to pull those out to do any repairs.



Looking at your pictures again I think the problem might all be in your cocking knob or the end of the shaft it's attached to. It looks like the prong on the bottom of the cocking knob is slipping over the outside of the bolt body and not being held in the cocked position - either it's bent, loose, or the shaft is bent, this being out of place could be what's binding the firing pin. Look at these pictures again to see how the gun should stay cocked with the bolt opened or out of the gun.

In cocked position through the cutout the internal rod goes back forward. Like you said something is stopping it from staying back (cocked)
The internal spring feels good and strong.

Danny, here are better pictures. One or more parts on your gun is either worn, bent or modified so the bolt will not stay cocked.

Mine looks like the correct photo, problem is it stays in that position. I can move it by hand but doesn't move when trigger is pulled.
When cocking the bolt slides to the rear but doesn't stay.

Yours does not look like the correct photo, the prong on your cocking piece is worn off so it slips over the outside of the bolt and does not get fully cocked as the bolt is opened and is not held at full cock like it should. Take a closer look at the the pictures of mine.

Here is a detail of yours -

I will have to check the only smith somewhat near and see if he can build it up. Must be why it would cock when I closed the bolt or at least felt like it with all the force it took to close it.