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Joshua Stevens were born in 1814 in Hampden County. Granted the following patents; locking device for firearm, patent no. 7802 1850, revolving, breech loading firearm, patent no. 8412 1851, assigned to the Massachusetts Arms Co., repeating firearm, patent nos. 9929 1853 and 12189 1855, both assigned to the Massachusetts Arms Co., breech loading firearm, patent no. 44123 1864 and a rifle barrel for breech loading shotguns, patent no. 211642 1879. Though Stevens was a toolmaker by trade, he worked with gun makers C.B. Allen, Eli Whitney, Samuel colt, and Edwin Wesson. In fact, Stevens helped Samuel Colt make Colt’s very first revolver in Colt’s small Hartford, Connecticut shop. History 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. Business was slow into 1870, when Stevens occupied a converted grist mill and had just sixty employees. The 1873 Panic 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 prior to that year. In 1883 they purchased the Massachusetts Arms Company which Joshua Stevens had helped found in 1850. 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. 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. On May 28, 1915, Stevens was purchased by New England Westinghouse, a division of Westinghouse Electric. 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 in order 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 Czar was deposed by the communists in 1917, New England Westinghouse was never paid and they fell into financial distress. 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 and 1920 while looking for a buyer for Stevens. 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. This merger made Savage the largest producer of arms in the United States at the time. Ammunition In 1887 the firm developed the .22 cartridge originally invented by Flobert in 1845 into a cartridge resembling the modern .22 long rifle cartridge. The.22 LR round, 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). 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. (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. Rifles Beginning in 1880, the company began making falling block rifles. 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. Stevens, under the ownership of New England Westinghouse, produced over 770,000 Mosin-Nagant rifles under contract with the Russian government between 1916 and 1917, of which 225,260 were delivered. The rest were sold to the U.S. government who supplied them to the American Expeditionary Forces, White Russian forces, Finland, and the Civilian Marksmanship Program. 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. During World War II, Savage used the Stevens facilities to produce several military firearms including the Savage Lee–Enfield No. 4 rifle, the Thompson submachine gun, the Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR), and the Browning M1919 and M2 machineguns. Stevens introduced the Model 87 in 1938, which sold over one million units. Further units were sold as the Savage Model 6 by Sears. Shotguns 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. 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. 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. Stevens 522 Trap Gun 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. 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 U.S. 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 the U.S. military during World War II, in trench, riot, and training versions. In all, over 45,000 were made during WW II and many remained in service through the Vietnam War. Target Pistols Joshua Stevens produced three lines of single-shot tip-up target pistols named after contemporary gunmen. • 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. • 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. 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. The many popular .22/25-20 boy’s rifles, made from circa 1880, by the same company, were very similar in shape to this shotgun, but later changed with more modern lines with the production of the “Favorite model”. On this gun the Damascus barrel is 32" long and cylinder bored. The barrel has a side-release for the drop down barrel. As popular at the time, the hammer action doubles as the safety device. The mechanism is based on the single shot pistols Joshua Stevens designed in the 1860s This Stevens Tip-up is an early, black power shotgun with a twisted (Damascus) steel barrel, made between 1870 and 1886, by J Stevens & Co, from a patent dated sept 1864. It is similar to the Stevens Expert Rifle, a 22 long rifle build on the same profile. The gun is designed for black powder cartridges and it is not safe to use with modern ammo, well at this age, it may be unsafe to use it with any ammo. Stevens single shot rifles and shotguns were affordable and of reasonable quality and thus very popular during the late 19th early 20th centuries in the US. Because Stevens was not one of the premium brands, their firearms are not seen as collector pieces and they will probably disappear like many cheap Saturday night-specials from America. This can be seen from the little info available on this maker. (ref. Gun values board http://www.gunvaluesboard.com/i-have-a-22-single-shot-pistol-and-think-it-is-a-stevens-new-model-pocket.-...-522282.html#522303 ; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stevens_Arms , Dictionary of Guns and Gunmakers p500 by John Walter, Internet Gun Club)
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