Modifying the Stevens 311 to Enhance Usability

[W.R.Buchanan]

In response to the thread on "Poor Mans Double Rifle," I decided to have a go at it.

I have had an old *** Stevens 311 Double Barrel 12ga. Shotgun in my safe for many years. I have wanted to cut the barrels and make it into a 20" Barreled "Coach Gun" to use as a simple Home Defense Gun my wife could conceivably use in an emergency.

Cutting the barrels off was the easy part and took all of 10 minutes to cut and grind the ends square.

Then a couple of design deficiencies reared their ugly heads.

First: the barrels don't stay far enough down after cocking to get spent rounds out and new ones in. You have to compress the Hammer Springs to their limits in order to make this happen. which pretty much eliminates any form of fast loading or reloading. The gun will NOT stay open on its own it reverts back to the "Hammers on the Sears" position with the chambers below the back of the receiver as soon as you release the barrels, thus you need three hands to load it!

There is a fix on the internet for this which involves re-profiling the cocking lever to allow the barrels to drop lower, but it is poorly explained and the sketch is literally on a piece of notebook paper with some scrawled writing as explanation.

I can get thru this part.

The second problem is that after firing the firing pins don't retract and the gun is a bear to open prompting many to literally break the gun in half over their knee to open it. This is pure BS!

I know that these guns were essentially inexpensive versions of the excellent Fox model B, however they kind of missed something in the translation.

Does anyone have any decent solutions to these two problems? The internet is virtually no help at all on this subject as is You Tube. I figure someone in the Cowboy Action Shooting Crowd might have some answers.

Randy

[richhodg66]

I had a Stevens 311 for a while and liked it. No frills gun but never any problems with it. Seems they're gaining in value now, wish I still had that one.

[Artful]

http://www.gun-parts.com/savageshotgun/Sep13_03.jpg

Look like part 11 is firing pin rebounding/retracting springs to me.
Are they installed in your gun? (http://www.gun-parts.com/savageshotgun/)
If so do they have any spring pressure left in them?

Go look about 6 min in on this video - he manually cocks the hammers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6uSaYqAwPQ
And the firing pins retract

[Cap'n Morgan]

I used to shoot an old Stevens Fox when shooting eiders from a sneak boat. The 30" barrels were heavy enough to hold the gun open against the mainspring pressure, but your 20" are obviously too light for gravity to do its thing. The easiest way to fix it would be to tighten up the forestock against the action. It can be done by welding a spot on the barrel plunger or by peening front of the square opening in the forestock, setting it back against the action and thereby increasing friction.

The hanging firing pins could be due to missing return springs or the hammers lacking enough rebound to allow for the pins to clear the standing breech - probably due to worn parts and pins. I liked my Fox, but it had a lot of dead-soft parts which wore down fast when exposed to saltwater and rough handling.

[W.R.Buchanan]

I am ordering a Brownell's Reduced Power Spring kit today along with some new Firing Pin Retract springs as it is pretty obvious mine are dead. I figured that this thing had to have rebounding firing pins.

Art: I watched all the videos on You Tube but didn't notice that particular point. I'll go back and watch it again.

The barrel opening fix is not that hard to do for me and I will be doing that. After working on this thing yesterday afternoon and smoothing out some of the parts the gun works a little smoother. Nothing in the gun is made from Hardened Steel and there are a lot of burrs and sharp edges that I know are holding things up. I'll address all that when I completely disassemble the gun for refinishing, and to put in the new springs and make the cocking lever mod.

This is a similar problem that I run into with Marlin Rifles every time I get one. Just deburring all the internal parts works wonders for the operation of the gun.

One of the reasons why the gun is so hard to cock is because of the ratio of the cocking lever, which is essentially a Bellcrank. It is what we normally call an Overdrive Situation where the lever part of the arm is shorter than the end that is pushing the Hammers back. This multiplies the effort needed to cock the hammers instead of reducing it,,, and Unfortunately there is nothing you can do about it, but the reduced Power Hammer Springs should help a lot.

I do not intend to spend a bunch of money on this gun. It is getting the mods and a lot of hand detail work done on it as well as a Black Cerakote finish on the metal, and it is going to have the wood reshaped and refinished to some darker color and a slip on Recoil Pad, and that's it.

Here's some pics of the gun and as you can see it is a pretty homely duck,,, any cosmetic upgrade will be an improvement.

Randy

[victorfox]

I don't know if it applies to stevens but the boito SxS (stoeger coach guns) are extremely hard to break open new. Had a 20 and a 12 in my hand and had to break them on my knees. On the other hand, older and worn guns falls open as your move the lever.

The CAS fellows have some tuning stuff in these guns including some sanding in touching points etc. YMMV but I would check this too as well as changing the springs as you'll do.

http://marauder.homestead.com/files/stoeger3.html

Another gun that needs these tunings is the the Baikal 43 (sold as Remington Spartan in US) there's a french video in YT where you can see the effort needed to break open the gun and the ejector failing (gun not broke in all rough inside...)

[Chev. William]

Have you considered Case Hardening the working parts that are soft steel? That would increase the 'wear resistance" of the Action.
Just a Thought,
Chev. William

[W.R.Buchanan]

Chev: This one is pretty old and it is not worn out by any means. If I had some other stuff to send to the Heat Treater I would certainly consider adding some of these parts, but not before they are detailed to their final configuration. Something to consider

VF: Thanks for the link!

Randy

[Cap'n Morgan]

Dang! Randy, I forgot how ugly those Stevens guns really were!

My Fox had a single trigger and ejectors, but both the single trigger and the ejectors looked (and worked) like some sort of afterthought and I changed it back to double triggers. Also, I brazed the ejectors together and fixed them so they would eject when the gun was opened, whether it has been fired or not. After raising the comb half an inch or so and adding several ounces of lead in the stock it became quite a nice gun to shoot.

[Lonegun1894]

I have two of these and they are my favorite hunting shotguns. I mean, easy to pull the proper trigger to fire whichever barrel you want to allow you to select choke needed for each shot. They extract instead of ejecting so easy to not lose empties. Built tough so we have very durable guns. Then again, I use a pump for my HD gun, so the same things that are qualities of the 311 for hunting can make for handicaps if using one for a HD gun. And I like the looks of yours, so maybe I just have issues.

[W.R.Buchanan]

Capt. Morg: those were before pics. Hopefully it will look a little better when I get done with it.

Like I said the easy part was cutting the barrels off. It took less than a minute to lop them off in the bandsaw and another 2 minutes to grind them square on the Belt Sander. I will be filling the void between the top and bottom ribs with Devcon, colored black, so the muzzle will look proper.

I ordered the new reduced power springs from Brownell's yesterday, but they didn't have the firing pin return springs. However what maybe going on is that they are just gooped up like everything else in this gun. I know this gun hasn't been apart in many years if ever, so that may be what is going on. We'll see when I take it all the way apart to do the muzzle drop mod and Cera Kote.

The Firing Pin Return Springs were $1 each from the gun parts outfit that Art posted but they had a $10 minimum so I will hold off until I can see if they are broken, collapsed, or just fine and just need cleaning before I order them.

On hold until parts get here.

Randy

[W.R.Buchanan]

After Playing with this gun for the last week I have arrived at the conclusion that a simple mod to the cocking lever will lower the barrels enough to make it so the chambers are accessible without having the hammer springs over compressed, and the addition of lighter Hammer Springs and a Lever Spring and Sear Spring, will get me where I wanted to be with this gun.

I have also found that like most generic guns the simple deburring of internal parts works wonders for the smoothness of operation. That along with cleaning and a little oil has been making a big difference in the operation of this gun.

I will detail exactly how I mod the cocking lever, which will only be a more concise version of the method I got off the internet. It will get posted here and on my website as well as some other places.

Randy.

[Lonegun1894]

Thank you very much! Looking forward to it.

[W.R.Buchanan]

So I took the receiver apart Sunday and everything went fine until I forgot to cover the rear of the action with a rag and the left Firing Pin Spring Plunger went winging to land somewhere in my shop. 2 hours of looking hasn't turned it up yet and whereas I could make the part I will probably order one from the outfit in the other thread in Gunsmithing.

Did all the detailing of the internal parts last night, and have to mod the cocking lever next. That will be a trial and error procedure and will take a little while, but I will be good at taking apart and reassembling when done.

Randy

[W.R.Buchanan]

Well it appears I will be making that part as they are not available. Luckily I have one to copy, or I might get lucky and actually find the one I lost. you never know!

Randy

[bikerbeans]

http://www.gunpartscorp.com/Manufacturers/SavageStevensSpringfieldFox-33479/Shotguns-40503/311Series-41307/311-33984.htm?page=3

Your missing part one of these?

BB

[W.R.Buchanan]

BB: Thanks so much for the link. I was kind of dumb and never considered that Numrich would have these. I'll get two and get two of the main pins as well.

Randy

[bikerbeans]

Randy,

Don't thank me to you see what Numrich sends you. :bigsmyl2: Sometimes they ship gold and sometimes it's a lump of coal. Usually you can return wrong or bad parts.

I am looking forward to you completed PBDR. I have a couple of them on the back burner while I finish my non-standard caliber Marlin 336 collection.

BB

[JWFilips]

Well my Dad's Stevens is my small game gun: when I knew it was mine I did some engraving ( never did that before this)
173129 173130 173131

[Hogtamer]

wow, that's nice JW! Thanks for posting.

[JWFilips]

Never made it more useable as per the thread posting but it made it mine
Also I honed out the tubes to shoot modern Plastic shells
You would be surprised how tight the tubes were with modern plastic shells

[nagantguy]

I went through many of these same headaches making my 311 into a coach gun, the barrels had a bulge right at the end of the muzzle, cleaning/stoning everything was a huge help as was underpowered springs, I also I let the wood of the forearm and put a brass weight in there to help the barrles open and stay open enough to get out old shells and get new ones in, I've hunted birds with it since it's been reborn, swings like a dream and with both tube now having true ip bores sure puts up a nice cloud of light shot, buck shot is a vertical spread on a man size target out to 50 yards and the 2 brands of slugs I've tried print high but centered about two inches apart. I plan on playing with it more for a slug load an be ready for our boar hunting trip!

[W.R.Buchanan]

I did the mod to the cocking lever tonight. It wasn't very hard at all. Since I had the entire receiver apart I was able to just stick the cocking lever in and pin it and then try the barrel drop a number of times. I used my Foredom Flexible Shaft Tool and a 1/4" grinding stone to do the work. I fiddled with it so I could understand how it worked and I could do another in about 5 minutes now that I know what to do. See Pics:

Surprisingly it came out looking pretty much like the drawing on the website that I originally Googled. If you look at the pics you can see that the lever has an odd radius on the face now. Note: right in front of the black mark is where I started with the grinding. Previously it was a smooth radius (about 1/2"), and thinning out the tip is what gives you the extra barrel drop. The whole idea is to get the barrels to drop a little further before the Hammers actually go past the sears.. The step on the lever then contacts the Breach Face which stops downward travel of the barrels. Obviously the Hammers still must go past the Sears or the Hammers won't stay cocked .

I went a little farther and polished the face of the lever a little more and it all works pretty smoothly now and the breach opens about another 1/8-3/16" More than enough to eject and reload it without fighting it.

I also did a lot of work on the Barrel Locking Lever and it's related parts so that when you open the gun it doesn't hang up. All the parts were pretty rough and deburring and breaking edges worked wonders and it all moves really smoothly now.

I also put a dimple in the rear tang of the receiver that I will fill with red paint to indicate the fire position of the safety.

This gun is typical of any Working/Generic Gun made in the 50's-70's. No hand work whatsoever on the internal parts and you were left to break it in during use.

Here's some pics of the Cocking Lever as I ground on it.

Randy

[Drm50]

Op your 311 has probaly not been shot that much, I know exactly what you are talking about,
when these 311s get to well used state they will drop to bottom of travel with no pressure needed. I have a Fox B action, always wondered if 311 barrels will fit it. The next 311 I get
I am going to check that out. When I cut doubles, I fill hollow of barrel rib with low temp silver
solder and draw file the muzzles, looks factory when done. If you want you can touch this up
with Birchwood Casey, Solder Black solution.

[W.R.Buchanan]

I am up to the reassembly part of this project and am finding that the firing pins don't protrude the same amount.

The right one is .040 and he left is .020. I'm wondering which one is right.

I already know that too much will impede the opening of the gun as the pins don't retract until the hammers start to move back during cocking. Then the little springs on the pins retract them below the breach face. Both will travel further under inertia but the retainer screws act as the hammer stops.

I am going to have to assemble the springs into the gun and test it to see what happens, and I have to make a spring compressor to do that. even the reduced power springs are pretty stiff and I can't even compress them at all by hand outside the gun.

It is going good though.

Randy

[Artful]

I am up to the reassembly part of this project and am finding that the firing pins don't protrude the same amount.

The right one is .040 and he left is .020. I'm wondering which one is right.

I already know that too much will impede the opening of the gun as the pins don't retract until the hammers start to move back during cocking. Then the little springs on the pins retract them below the breach face. Both will travel further under inertia but the retainer screws act as the hammer stops.

I am going to have to assemble the springs into the gun and test it to see what happens, and I have to make a spring compressor to do that. even the reduced power springs are pretty stiff and I can't even compress them at all by hand outside the gun.

It is going good though.

Randy

I'm confused - you lost one correct? and you remade it to match the existing - and the diagram shows both pins with same part# 12A
so why is one longer than the other?

[Drm50]

.020 is about right for protrusion. To long can cause punctured primers, and pin sheared off when
closing empty gun.

[W.R.Buchanan]

Art: I lost one of the hammer spring plungers, I have those now.

The firing pins are very close in length. it is how far they stick out when the hammers are against the stops that is different.

The height of the stops is what is different and that is because they are different heights in the receiver itself. The FP retainer screws are the hammer stops, and they are close to the same, but the counter bores in the receiver itself are different heights in relation to the hammer pivot pin thus one firing pin sticks out further than the other when the hammers are down on the stops like they are after the gun is fired. As you start to break the barrels open the hammers start to be cocked and then the firing pin retraction spring retract the pins behind the breach face. However the pins don't retract until after the barrels have started to move open which if the pins stick out to far into the spent primers makes it difficult to open the gun.

This is why I am wondering if these firing pins are supposed to be close to the breach face when held there by the hammers but use inertia to go further into the primer, then rebound. They both will go further than the hammers push them.

Randy

[rking22]

I have a 311 from the 50s that was little used and in very good working condition, I shoot some vintage skeet with it on occasion. I will look this weekend and see what mine looks like in the FP department. Maybe that can offer you some additional insight. Will post pics if it seems useful to the discussion.

[JWFilips]

Just keep in mind those tubes were made for paper shells! You really got to open them up if you use plastic!

[rking22]

It is mighty tight :)

[W.R.Buchanan]

Well after switching the pins from left to right they now are fairly close in protrusion so I went ahead and reassembled the receiver.

And it works! with no parts leftover!

The barrels don't rebound off the Hammer Springs now (reduced power hammer springs) and stay open all the way, and the trigger pulls are good also.

I have to tell you guys that the detailing all the internal parts made a substantial difference in the way this thing opens and closes and works overall. It is noticeably smoother than it was,,, partially because it is clean as well, but also because everything inside was deburred,,, and before,,, nothing was deburred.

Anyway I'm going to work on the wood now, and get that sorted out and refinished, and then shoot the thing and see how the barrels are regulated and decide to put sights on it or not. I also have to fill the void between the barrels in the front, and I will get around to that soon.

Here's some pics of where I'm at right now with the project.

Randy

[Artful]

Looking Good - glad to hear it's Working Good - and I hope to hear it Grouping Good.

Keep us posted Randy

[Lonegun1894]

Looks great to me!

[W.R.Buchanan]

Got a Buttstock Shell Carrier for it yesterday it will always have ammo on board now. Still need to work on the wood but been busy with other stuff. Still need to shoot the thing as well,,, maybe next weekend at the Short Range Silhouette Shoot.

Randy

[Hogtamer]

Pretty slick Randy, nice work. While you're working go ahead and install a good permanent recoil pad and make your shooting sessions enjoyable. A scabbard hung over the back of your truck seat makes for a good "carry" weapon too! Ok, I know, I'm from Georgia......

[Artful]

A scabbard hung over the back of your truck seat makes for a good "carry" weapon too! Ok, I know, I'm from Georgia......

Or shades of Romancing the Stone

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZaloRoiy7A

[Hogtamer]

I'm glad WR listened to our VP and took his advice....don't even have to hit anything!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KEsaXk6Sc3k

[Rattlesnake Charlie]

How timely. Last Friday I purchased a Fox Sterlingworth 12 ga with double triggers. It is a little stiff when removing fired shells. I'll use this info to hopefully slick things up.

My goal was to get something to use in Cowboy Action Shooting. On Sunday morning I took it to the range and shot a round of trap against those with "snob guns". Danged if the ole gun didn't break 23 out of 25. 3 out of 4 of them moved over to the international trap range. I guess they don't like my new shotgun more than when I showed up with my Mossberg 835 that still had mud from a previous duck hunt on it. They don't know class when it is right beside them.

[W.R.Buchanan]

Hog: It was definitely JB's influence that inspired this build. However as much as I am not a fan of that regime,,, a Double Barreled Shotgun with short barrels is not a bad choice for home defense.

It is an easy gun to learn how to shoot and my wife could conceivably shoot it in the general direction of a threat by holding it under her arm pit and avoid the recoil.

I have a Limbsaver Slip On Recoil pad for it, and they really work good on other guns I have and it should cut the felt recoil of this gun down to virtually nothing with light trap loads or my pumpkin ball loads.

The beauty of these guns is that all you can do with one is break it open, insert shells, close it, pull triggers, repeat. Thus for someone who is unfamiliar with firearms it can act as a serious Force Multiplier with little training involved.

Since my wife isn't particularly interested in Firearms or Firearms Training, but does realize that it is possible that she might need to know something,,, If I can get her to hold still long enough to broach the subject,,, this gun is the easiest way to achieve the goal of having her competent enough so that she doesn't shoot me!

She couldn't handle my M500 on a bet and that would be my first choice in the house, but she could handle the double.

Anyway I will report back on her success or failure with the gun. Others may wish to follow with their spouses, and in todays environment the more people we have competent with firearms the better off we all will be.

You never know when the need will visit you or yours.

Randy

[Artful]

Randy be careful if you have her put it in her armpit as I have seen some
bad cases of the openning lever running over the web of the shooters hand
-(usually on SBS/AOW with heavy loads - I admit), a painful lesson.

[W.R.Buchanan]

Art will definitely watch for that as any infliction of any pain will immediately stop any forward progress in the training.

I started on the wood tonight. I sanded and reshaped the fore end.

This piece of wood has virtually no visible grain whatsoever. It is nearly completely devoid of any grain features whatsoever. Almost looks like Balsa Wood. I will use it to start my education into "Sharpie Grain Enhancement."

Don't Laugh,,, I have a friend who refinishes high end shotguns. He showed me a Perrazzi he had refinished with about $10,000 wood. He showed me exactly where he had "enhanced" the grain with a sharpie before the final finish. We were standing in bright sunlight and even though he showed me exactly where he'd done it ,,, I couldn't pick it out.

15 minutes later a knowledgeable individual came by and showed me exactly where it had been retouched. He knew exactly what he was looking at,,, and my aim is to get some idea of what methodology was used to pull this off. The owner didn't know at all and nobody was telling him. This was a $50,000 gun, and the Trap Guys are not afraid to spend some money, but a good Trap gun will go 1-200,000 rounds without any real work done to it. They are pretty decent pieces of machinery and as such don't come cheap. An "Entry Level Gun" is about $2500 and the prices go strait up from there.

There is a way of picking out specific lines in the natural grain and darkening them so as to make them more prominent, the trick is to figure out which lines need to be darkened and which ones to leave alone.

Anyway this is where I'm at right now. Will start on the buttstock in the next few days. It is more of the same.

Randy

[W.R.Buchanan]

OK guys: here it is and the resto phase of the project is done. The wood came out OK for Birch I did some Sharpie Grain Enhancement which hardly shows up and then followed it with some Red Oak Stain and a coat of French Red none of which look anything close to the French Red over Walnut look I was going for but look decent on this gun none the less. I finished with about 4 coats of Tru Oil enough to fill pretty much all of the open bits of grain which were very few in number. The final coat was MiniWax Dark Furniture Wax applied with 0000 steel wool and buffed with a Paper Shop Towel which took some of the shine off it.

Had this wood been anything walnut with any decent grain I would have spent more time, but for what it is I think it came out just fine.

Mods to the gun included a complete tear down and detailing of all the internal parts, Cutting the Barrels to 20", Defeating the Auto Safety Function, New Weaker Springs, a slight mod to the cocking lever to allow the barrels to drop down further to facilitate loading, and external refinish which amounted to steel wooling all the surface rust off and covering everything with BC Super Blue and then saturating it with Frog Lube. I also mounted a new Front Hi-Viz green bead, and added a Limbsaver Slip On Recoil Pad and Extra Ammo Sleeve.

Now the shooting portion of this build will take place, and the goal is to have both barrels to shoot somewhere close to POA at 50 yards with my Pumpkin Ball Loads. If it does I will install Rifle Sights as the original reason for doing this was to create a "Poorman's Double Rifle" and not Joe Biden's idea of a Home Defense Weapon. Although at the Ranges this gun would be effective at, the Day-Glow Green Bead and Silver Center Bead would be good enough to score hits on a man sized target or charging critter.

We'll see. :mrgreen:

Randy

[OnHoPr]

Send it to me, I will put the rifle sights on it and test it this season. I just seen a bunch of Fed 2.75 1 oz slugs on clearance for $3 a box, so I could test it for you. :Fire:[smilie=s:

[W.R.Buchanan]

I like your website... I appears that you have a bit of experience with these critters.

I have had some experience with those Federal Slugs. It resulted in 3 trips to my Chiropractor to reinstall some of my ribs.

Those are 1oz slugs at 1610 fps! and the reason they are on sale is cuz people don't know what they are getting into. That is well past my .45-70 which had killed everything on earth before 1900 at 1300fps!

I have several boxes I bought a Walmart many years ago on sale at $5.00,,, for a box of 10! I have fired exactly 2 rounds from my M500 and it cost me $240 in doctors bills. They could be easily called "**** Kickers,,," cuz they kicked mine.

Randy

[OnHoPr]

Yea, just the pass few years I have been getting into this shotgunning for deer. I lived in a shotgun zone most of my life, but hunted the rifle zone. Detrimental state and affiliated orgs put a kabosh on deer herds in a lot of public hunting grounds in MI. I have hunted in terrain these last few years not to my particular hunting style preferences. I got an old Weaver 1.5 to 4.5 variable WIDE view scope, big tv screen style that would go good on that kawalloper 12. Put a slug in the right and left or maybe figure a good buckshot load for the left and that old SxS would work pretty deadly in a few spots I have been sitting in. I guess you could go reduced recoil or work a Lee 7/8 oz with something like low 20 grers maybe even 19 gr of Green Dot would be like a light trap/field load.