This is truely the little rifle that could. I recieved this vintage 22 about 6 years ago. It was in a closet in my Aunts house when she died. Her husband died in the 60's and I am sure it was in that closet the whole time. I thought little of it until a got it out to look at it for a possible trade. The first thing I noticed was the gas ports on the side of the reciever. The next was that it fired three different shells.
I looked it up on the web. It was made for sears by stevens/savage between the years 1938~41. It is tube fed 16 longs or a whole hand full of shorts. The barrel is as thick as some of todays bull barrel 22 rifles. The rifle comes to sight picture very easy and natural.
One of the kind of odd features is that the bolt will stay back until the trigger is allowed to return. You can run it in semi~auto mode or use the oversized action knob as a bolt.
After all the years of closet storage and absolutely no love showed to the gun it fired like a champ. We sprayed some light lubricant on the action and loaded it up. Zero ftf or fte with the bulk ammo 22lf we shot thru it. It would cycle the 22 shorts about 80% of the time in semi~auto mode. No problems at all when we used it in bolt action mode with the shorts.
All shooting was off hand by multiple shooters. The accuracy was very good. If shot from a bench or rest of some kind I would say it is a tack driver. I will try a bench next time.
All in all, I feel like I found a gem that was under my nose for years. I think anybody who runs across one should show interest in it. If given a chance, shoot it. If given an oppurtunity to buy one, consider it.
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Location: Third bunker on the right,Central Virginia
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We used to call those "gill guns"- looked like gill slits on a shark!
There are a bunch of well made, good utility grade rifles out there. Despite the fact that Savage/Stevens/Springfield/Fox was the largest gun maker in the US at one time, these little guns never get the collector's following of Winchester, Browning, etc- which means prices are really good.
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What we have heah is.... failure to communicate.
Yup that little rifle shot real good,I was surprised by how smooth and easy to shoot it was considering its age. I like the little thing a lot.
If anyone's interested on hearing more about it I broke out my new walther ppq on the same outing today and could write a little report on it. Pops here suggested a range report but I haven't seen any traffic about it here on this forum to write a bug long range report on it. Trip also put a few boxes through his new mil-spec springfield,makes me wish I woulda gotten a 1911 when I had the itch to get a .45.
ranger 101/16 22 short/long/long rifle
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