The Springfield Model 87A is the same as the Stevens Model 87. Both Stevens and Springfield, at the time, where subsidiaries of the Savage Arms Co. And the Model 87 was basically the same rifle as the Savage Model 6. The Model 87 began production in 1938 as The Springfield 87. The Springfield Model 87 was dropped in 1947 - 1948.

Stevens Arms was an Americanfirearms manufacturer founded by Joshua Stevens in 1864 in Chicopee Falls, MA. The company introduced the .22 Long Rifle round and made a number of rifle, shotgun, and target pistol designs. By 1902 they were advertising themselves as 'the largest producers of sporting arms in the world'.^[1] They were purchased by New England Westinghouse on May 28, 1915 and again by Savage Arms on April 1, 1920.^[2] As a division of Savage, Stevens continued to produce firearms at their Chicopee Falls facility until 1960 when the plant was torn down and Stevens production was moved into other Savage facilities. Savage dropped the Stevens name in 1991 but revived it in 1999 and still uses it today for a number of its low cost rifles and shotguns.

History[edit]

Stevens Arms was founded by Joshua Stevens with help from backers W.B. Fay and James Taylor in Chicopee Falls, MA,^[3] in 1864 as J. Stevens & Co. Their earliest product was a tip-up action single shot pistol.^[4]

Business was slow in 1870 when Stevens occupied a converted grist mill and had just sixty employees. The Panic of 1873 had a further negative impact on sales. By 1876 the company had recovered to the extent that it was then manufacturing twice the number of shotguns as it had been before that year.^[5] In 1883 they purchased the Massachusetts Arms Company which Joshua Stevens had helped found in 1850.^[1] In 1886, the company was reorganized and incorporated as J. Stevens Arms & Tool Co. The business was able to grow steadily with tool manufacturing and sales now accounting for the bulk of the business output.^[4]

Stevens and Taylor were bought out in 1896 by I.H. Page, who was one of the new partners and the bookkeeper. Page led the company to significant growth, such that by 1902 Stevens had 900 employees and was considered one of the top sporting firearms manufacturers in the world. In 1901, Stevens entered into a partnership with J. Frank Duryea to produce the Stevens-Duryea automobile manufactured at a separate facility also in Chicopee Falls, MA. In 1915, Stevens led the U.S. arms business in target and small game guns.^[4]

On May 28, 1915, New England Westinghouse, a division of Westinghouse Electric, purchased Stevens. New England Westinghouse was created specifically to fulfill a contract to produce 1.8 million Mosin-Nagant rifles for Czar Nicholas II of Russia for use in World War I. They needed a firearms manufacturing facility to accomplish this and chose Stevens. After the purchase, they sold off the tool making division, halted production of Stevens-Duryea automobiles, and, on July 1, 1916, renamed the firearms division the J. Stevens Arms Company. When the Bolsheviks deposed the Czar in 1917, New England Westinghouse was never paid, and it fell into financial distress.^[1][6] They managed to sell most of the rifles to the U.S. Government and keep the Stevens firearms facility operational and did return to limited production of civilian firearms between 1917-1920 while looking for a buyer for Stevens.^[7]

Stevens was purchased by the Savage Arms Company on April 1, 1920 with Stevens operating as a subsidiary of Savage but in a semi-independent status until 1942.^[1] This merger made Savage the largest producer of arms in the United States at the time.^[8]

Ammunition[edit]

in 1887, Stevens developed the .22 LRround,^[9] which served as an introductory caliber for children for decades, as well as being very popular for plinking, varmint and target shooting. The .22LR cartridge was available beginning in 1888, in the #1, #2, #9, and #10 break-top rifles, and in their New Model Pocket and Bicycle rifles. The .22 LR would outperform other Stevens rounds, such as the .25 Stevens and .25 Stevens Short, designed as competitors, and offered in models such as the lever action single-shot Favorite (produced between 1894 and 1935) and the Crack Shot #15 (introduced in 1900).^[10]

As several manufacturers would later do with other wildcats, Stevens adopted the .25-20, developed by Francis J. Rabbeth in 1882. The unpopularity of the bottlenecked case led Stevens to develop the .25-21 in 1897. Designed by Capt. W. L. Carpenter, 9th U.S. Infantry, the .25-21 Stevens was essentially a shortened version of the company's own .25-25 of 1895.^[11] (This is an odd reversal of the relationship of the .38 S&W Special to the .357 Magnum.) The .25-25 would be used in Stevens' model 44 and the model 44½ rifles manufactured from 1903.^[11]

Rifles[edit]

In 1880, the company began making falling blockrifles. These, though less well known than Ballard or Winchester firearms, were of comparable quality. They were priced lower than those of Ballard or Winchester, making the Stevens' falling block models competitive in the marketplace. Under names like Favorite, Little Scout, Crack Shot, and Marksman, Stevens sold millions of reliable single-shots. The total number of single-shot firearms manufactured by the company exceeded 3.5 million by 1892.^[5]

Stevens, under the ownership of New England Westinghouse, produced over 770,000 Mosin-Nagant rifles under contract with the Russian government between 1916-1917, of which 225,260 were delivered. The rest were sold to the American government to arm the American Expeditionary Forces, White Russian forces, Finland, and the Civilian Marksmanship Program.^[6][7]

The 416 had a dramatically oversized bull barrel and a large wooden stock. The heavy barrel design added a great deal of weight which compared unfavorably with larger rifles such as the military's various .30 caliber offerings. It had adjustable peep sight apertures, a hooded front sight, and a small, removable magazine.^[12][13]

During World War II, Savage used Stevens' facilities to produce several military firearms including the Savage Lee–Enfield No. 4 rifle,^[14] the Thompson submachine gun, the Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR), and the Browning M1919 and M2 machineguns.^[12][13][15]

Stevens introduced the Model 87 in 1938, which sold over one million units. Further units were sold as the Savage Model 6 by Sears.^[5]

Shotguns[edit]

Starting in 1872, Stevens began producing single-barreled shotguns based on their tip-up rifles and pistols. The first was the Model 30 offered in 14 gauge but soon followed by 10, 12, 16, and 20 gauges.^[16]

In 1876, Stevens produced its first double-barreled shotgun, the Three Trigger Model, which used a third trigger to unlock the action, and was offered in 10 and 12 gauges.^[16]

Between 1900 and 1916 Stevens produced 26 single-barreled shotgun models, eight exposed hammer double-barreled models, and seven hammerless double-barreled models including a sidelock design, the Model 250.^[16]

In 1907, Stevens was approached by John Browning and offered the design of a pump-action, hammerless, take-down, repeating shotgun that would become the Model 520 and 620 shotguns.^[17] The Model 520, easily recognized by its distinctive double-hump receiver, first appeared in Stevens' 1909 Catalog #52 and remained in production until 1939.^[16][18]

In 1927, Stevens produced the Model 620, a streamlined version of the 520, and it remained in production until 1955. Stevens provided a prototype Model 520 trench gun to the American military in 1918 for use in World War I but it was never produced in quantity. Both the Model 520A and 620A were produced (as the M520-30 and M620) for military use during World War II, in trench, riot, and training variants. Over 45,000 were made during WW II and many remained in service through the Vietnam War.^[19]

Target pistols[edit]

Joshua Stevens produced three lines of single-shot tip-up target pistols named after contemporary gunmen.^[20]

• Stevens-Conlin No. 38 – named for James Conlin, owner of a Broadway Avenue shooting gallery in New York City.
• Stevens-Lord No. 36 – named for Frank Lord, a prominent target shooter. Six hundred were produced from 1880 to 1886.^[20]
• Stevens-Gould No. 37 – named for Arthur Corbin Gould, a firearms expert and writer.

Two well-known examples of the Stevens-Lord No. 36 were custom ordered by Buffalo Bill, serial no. 29 for himself and serial no. 32 as a gift for Ben Thompson. The deluxe set of pistols had ten-inch barrels chambered for .32 Colt, iridescent mother-of-pearl grips, and custom engraving with gold inlay by Louis Daniel Nimschke. The one given to Thompson included 'From Buffalo Bill to Ben Thompson' on the spine of the grip.^[20]

An engraved, gold-plated Stevens-Gould No. 37 was given to sharpshooter Annie Oakley in the 1890s by her husband Frank Butler. The pistol had finely engraved dog and horse head motifs on both sides of the frame. The Stevens-Gould No. 37 was one of three embellished guns cased for Oakley as a presentation group.^[21]

References[edit]

1. ^ ^abcdVorisek, Joseph (1992). A Short Illustrated History of the J Stevens Arms & Tool Company. Cornell Publications. pp. 3–7.
2. ^Vorisek, Joseph (1994). A Short Illustrated History of the Savage Arms Company 1895 to 1945. Cornell Publications. p. 4.
3. ^Fjestad, S.P. (2009). Blue Book of Gun Values. Blue Book Publications. p. 1565. ISBN978-1-886768-87-1.
4. ^ ^abcFlayderman, Norm (1994). Flayderman's Guide to Antique American Firearms. DBI Books. p. 209.
5. ^ ^abcWallack, LR. 'Sixty Million Guns'. 1983. In Gun Digest Treasury, Harold A. Murtz, editor, DBI Books. 1994 pp.192-193, 195, 197 ISBN0873491564
6. ^ ^abLapin, Terence. 'The American Mosin Nagant'. Mosin-Nagant.net. Retrieved December 12, 2015.
7. ^ ^abVorisek, Joseph (1992). A Short Illustrated History of the J Stevens Arms & Tool Company. Cornell Publications. pp. 31–33.
8. ^The Hardware review. Pentz Publishing Co. 26: 55. 1920.Missing or empty |title= (help)
9. ^Barnes, Frank (1976). Cartridges of the World. DBI Books. p. 274. ISBN978-0-89689-936-0.
10. ^Barnes,(1976) p.276
11. ^ ^abBarnes, (1976), p.74.
12. ^ ^abKimmel, Jay (1990). Savage & Stevens arms: collector's history. Corey/Stevens. ISBN978-0-942893-00-7.
13. ^ ^abCanfield, Bruce N. (1996). U.S. Infantry Weapons of World War II. Andrew Mowbray. ISBN978-0-917218-67-5.
14. ^Skennerton, Ian (1993). Lee-Enfield Story: A Complete Study of the Lee-Metford, Lee-Enfield, S.M.L.E. and No.4 Series. Ian D Skennerton. ISBN978-0-949749-15-4.
15. ^Canfield, Bruce N. (2000). U. S. Infantry Weapons of the First World War. Andrew Mowbray. ISBN978-0-917218-90-3.
16. ^ ^abcdVorisek, Joseph (1992). A Short Illustrated History of the J Stevens Arms & Tool Company. Cornell Publications. pp. 64–68.
17. ^Archer, Eric (1988). 'U.S. Military Shotguns of WW2'. Gun Digest.
18. ^Stevens Firearms General Catalog and Component Parts #52 (Revised). J Stevens Arms & Tool Co. 1909. pp. 91–98.
19. ^Canfield, Bruce (2007). The Complete Guide to U.S. Military Combat Shotguns. Mowbray Publishers. pp. 94–95, 117, 134–139. ISBN1-931464-28-6.
20. ^ ^abcBicknell, Natalie and Tom (July 19, 2007). 'A Very Handsome Present from Buffalo Bill'.
21. ^Autry National Center (January 12, 2012). 'Annie Oakley's Pistols'.

External links[edit]

• Media related to Stevens Arms at Wikimedia Commons

If manufactured prior to 1969, it doesn't have one.

Where is serial number located on Stevens shotgun?

Depends on model and when it was made. I have a Stevens 84-C that has no SN on it. Read More

What is a Stevens 539A?

THAT NUMBER LOOKS LIKE A SERIAL NUMBER NOT A MODEL NUMBER. IF IT IS LOCATED UNDER THE STOCK JUST BEHIND THE TRIGGER GUARD IT IS A SERIAL OR PRODUCTION NUMBER NOT A MODEL NUMBER. Read More

Where is the serial number located at on the Stevens model 95?

i need to know where the serial number is on a 16 guage crack barrel, about 30 years old Read More

Where is the serial number located on a Stevens Model 770?

if made 1968 or before it wasn't required to have one if it does it will be clearly marked on the barrel Read More

Where do you find the serial number on Stevens arm model 940 or 94C?

These savage/stevens model 94c were made from 1929-1942.long before serial numbers were mandated by the gun control act of 1968.So there is a strong possability that your stevens does noy have a serial number. Read More

Where is the serial number on Stevens 77d?

Stevens 12 ga, Model 77D, made before 1968 may not have a serial number. However, some do! If it has a serial number, it will be behind the trigger on the receiver side. Read More

Did Stevens make a model 337 shotgun?

All my records indicate that stevens did not make a model 337 shotgun.If your stevens shotgun is marked U337 under the receiver,this would be a serial number,not a model number. Read More

How old is your Stevens 20 gauge model 9478 serial number D582811?

Your stevens model 9478 was made by savage/stevens between the years 1978-1985. Read More

What is the age of a Stevens model 70 serial T775?

The Stevens Model 70 with the serial number T775 was manufactured between the years of 1907 to 1931. There were only 100,000 of these rifles produced. Read More

Does a Stevens Model 77-F 20 gauge pump shotgun have a serial number on the gun?

model 77 does not have a serial number,they were made before serial numbers were required Read More

What is the age of a Stevens 12 gauge model number g20a and serial 12202?

Dating a Stevens 12 gauge model number g20a and serial 12202 is best done by the name on the gun. Where only Stevens appears the gun is likely made between 1940-1991. Read More

What model is serial number 0203 Stevens 22 pump?

We cannot tell from a serial number alone. You might check with Savage Firearms customer service (They own the Stevens brand) Read More

Where is the serial number located on a Stevens Model 22-410 over-under gun?

Your gun began production in 1939. In 1950 the brand was changed to Savage. Rifles and shotguns made before 1968 were not required by law to have a serial number. IF yours has a serial number, it is stamped on the lower left side of the frame, just forward of the trigger. Read More

What year is this gun made Stevens 20 gauge model 9478 serial number D582811?

Your stevens model 9478 shotgun was made during the years 1978-1985.while serial numbers were on the shotguns I do not believe that serial number records were kept as to the year of production. Read More

Where is the serial number located on the Stevens model 77F 16 gauge?

May not have one- US law did not require a SN on rifles and shotguns until 1968. Read More

how old is your Stevens 410 shotgun?

No way of knowing without a serial number /model number to identify what type of .410 gauge stevens you have. Read More

Where is serial number located on a howard upright piano?

where is the serial number or model number located on a Howard/baldin piano Read More

Where is the Serial number on Stevens 325-a?

Stevens Model 87 Rifle

I do not believe the model 325's were manufactured after 1968. Therefore they required no serial number and yours may not have one. If it did have a serial number it would be on the receiver. Read More

What is the value of a Stevens Full 12 gauge pump model 14582?

That is not a model number, but is likely the serial number. Unless you have a Model 620 US marked Trench Gun, Stevens pump shotguns have little collectors value. Read More

What is the age and value of a J Stevens 410 serial 38A?

That's a model number, not a serial number. These guns did not bear serial numbers. The Stevens 38A was made in the 1940's. Value is typically around $100 in excellent condition. sales@countrygunsmith.net Read More

Where is the serial number located on the Model 33?

On the left side of the breach... if there is one. Early Model 33's did not have a serial number. Read More

What year was J Stevens model 325 serial number 13222 made and what else does the serial number tell you?

To answer your question the serial number tells you that it dates back to 1903 the first year of this production. Read More

What year was the Stevens pocket pistol serial number 39908?

Stevens was in business from 1864-1950. They did not have a 'pocket pistol' model, but DID make a 'pocket rifle' model from 1869-1916. Am aware of no specific production data based on serial numbers. Read More

What year was the Stevens model 30 serial?

Your Stevens model 30 was made from 1933-1934. Read More

Where is the serial number located on JC Higgins 22 cal model 10381?

There isnt a serial number,usually just the model number you see. Read More

When was the Stevens model 940c single shot 16 gauge made?

Stevens Model 940c was manufactured between 1961 and 1970. If your shotgun has no serial number then it was made before 1969. Read More

How old is a Stevens model 125 22 cal serial number D906241?

the savage/stevens no125 was made from 1912-1923,there were 5,000 made. Read More

What are Stevens High Power Model 425 Serial Number Range?

hi, I'm in Canada,my 425 is in 35 rem cal, serial number is 4327,Bryan. Read More

How old is a stevens 770 shotgun?

If there is no serial number, it is a 1960's model-up to 1968. In 1968 a law was passed requiring all guns to have a serial number. Read More

Where is the serial number on a 410 J Stevens Model 59 A?

Wasn't required to have one. sales@countrygunsmith.net Read More

What year was the model 487t Stevens rifle made?

If you are asking about a specific one, you have to provide the serial number. Read More

What year would 12 ga. shotgun Stevens model 67 series E serial number c956993 made?

I can say that the Stevens model 67 was discontinued in the year 1989. Read More

How old is your Stevens 410 model 944 serial?

The Stevens model 944 was made from 1936-1942. Read More

Can you find out the age of my J Stevens 520-30 riot 12 gauge shot gun by its serial number?

The serial number range for the Stevens model 520-30 military shotguns is from 30,000-70,000.As to the year of manufacture you will probably have to contact Savage/Stevens directly. Read More

When was this Stevens 20 gauge shotgun serial model 9478 serial C892491 made?

The stevens model 9478 shotgun was made between 1978-1985. Read More

How do you tell the age of your Stevens 20 gauge model 9478 by the serial number?

While this is the normal way of doing this,Stevens did not keep accurate records of serial numbers per year of production.I can say that the model 9478 was made between 1978-1985. Read More

What year is a Johnson outboard motor serial number G5994865?

In order to determine the year model for Johnson or Evinrude outboards, the model number, rather than the serial number is needed. The model number is located on the tag, or sticker that bears the serial number. Read More

When was Stevens model 9478 serial number C999217 made 12 gauge?

The Stevens model 9478 was made from 1978-1985.for a exact year of production,you will need to contact Savage Arms Company who made the Stevens line of shotguns. Read More

Where is the serial number on a Winchester model 53 located?

The serial number on a Winchester model 53 is on the bottom of the receiver, just behind the foregrip stock. Read More

How can you tell how old a double barrel 410 Model 311 series H that reads Stevens Savage Arms and has a serial?

There is no website to determine the age of a Stevens 311 by serial number. However, since yours has a serial number it is almost certainly post-1968. sales@countrygunsmith.net Read More

What is the age of a Stevens savage Model 124 12 gauge?

Stevens Model 87a Serial Number Location

The Stevens Savage Model 124 12 gauge shotgun was made from 1949 to 1954. The serial number will signify the actual year of manufacture. Read More

What is the approx worth of your Stevens marksman model 236 22 long rifle marked j Stevens arms company chicopee falls mass?

Stevens Model 87a For Sale

Answer THE MODEL NUMBER DOES NOT MATCH ANY MARKSMAN I HAVE EVER SEEN. IF THAT NUMBER IS ON THE UNDERSIDE OF THE LOWER TANG NEAR THE STOCK MOUNTING SCREW IT IS A SERIAL NUMBER NOT A MODEL NUMBER. The '236' has to do with a parts number or production date. It is not a serial number in the usual sense. I own more than 100 of the Stevens 'boys rifles,' and every one of them… Read More

How old is a 520 Stevens umpshotgun serial number 76305?

Stevens Model 87a For Sale

While I cannot state the exact year of your Stevens model 520 production,I can say that this model of shotgun was made from 1912-1932.Stevens/Savage made 191,000 during these years Read More

Where is the serial number for a glenfield model 20?

The serial number on a Glenfield model 20 is located on the left side right behind the barrel on the outside of the breech. Read More