Stevens Maynard Jr

[Danth]

Hi: Looking for some information and help. Hoping to find someone that can help me out with a tracing of the stock. I have found pics of the stock, some having a contoured stock and others having basically a flat stock with rounded edges. If someone can help me out it would be much appreciated. Best, Dan

[pietro]

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Your best bet for help would be to contact a Ballard expert, who just so happens to be a fellow board member here - marlinman93

At the top of this thread, click on "community", then select "M", - his contact info is on (about) the middle of pp14.


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[Shawlerbrook]

Ditto on marlinman

[marlinman93]

Not sure I can be of much help, as my involvement with and knowledge of Stevens and Stevens Maynards is limited. I would suggest some people who might be able to help you with 90" inletted stocks to replace on your gun, but that's about all.
I've had great luck with Crossno's gun service in Oklahoma City, and you might also call CPA as they too do stocks.

[Drm50]

I had Stevens Maynard Jr. for years. The stock was a flat plank. Rounded edges. Stock was drilled through and connected with stock bolt. Simple flat steel butt plate. Also the stock was not Walnut I believe it was pine or fir.

[uscra112]

The 1905 Stevens catalog claims the stock to be "oiled walnut". Later today I'll try to post a photo of the catalog picture, which will at least give an idea of what the stock should look like. They were indeed just a flat board, rounded top and bottom. Buttplate was steel.

Stevens actually owned the rights to the fabled Maynard, having bought out Massachusetts Arms, who were the maker of it. The Maynard Jr. is, however, a very poor relation to the original design. It was made to be even cheaper than the already-cheap Crack Shot, and as such has to be limited to the mildest of modern ammo.

[Drm50]

I have seen Stevens Maynard Jrs with no butt plate, just horizontal grooves. When I was 5 my dad bought me a Marlin 1897 carbine. Very nice 22 but at 5yrs I couldn’t hold it up to shoot it. A friend of the family gave me the Maynard Jr and it was in like new shape. Easy for a 5yr old to handle.The stock on mine was not walnut.

[skeettx]

https://www.guns.com/news/review/stevens-maynard-jr-22-lr-rifle-review

CALL, YES, CALL
https://www.gunpartscorp.com/gun-manufacturer/savstevspgfld/rifles-sav/maynard-jr-15-om

https://gunvalues.gundigest.com/stevens-arms-co-j/13116/no-15/

https://bid.auctionbymayo.com/lot-details/index/catalog/23702/lot/3462497?url=%2Fsearch%2F%3Fpage%3D12%26view%3Dcomp

[uscra112]

FWIW gunpartscorp.com (i.e. Numrich) may send you a battered-up old piece of wood that's worse than what you've got. Ask me how I know.

[marlinman93]

FWIW gunpartscorp.com (i.e. Numrich) may send you a battered-up old piece of wood that's worse than what you've got. Ask me how I know.

Anything used from Numrich is a crap shoot. And considering how plain a Stevens Maynard Jr. stock is, you'd be better off buying a piece of plain walnut the correct thickness, and fabricating your own stock from scratch.

[uscra112]

Anything used from Numrich is a crap shoot. And considering how plain a Stevens Maynard Jr. stock is, you'd be better off buying a piece of plain walnut the correct thickness, and fabricating your own stock from scratch.

Absolutely. It's about the easiest stockmaking job there is, except for boring that through-hole.

That guns.com writer didn't bother doing any worthwhile research, did he? Maynard rifles were only made by Massachusetts Arms. Joshua Stevens bought M.A. when the old firm was liquidated, but there never was a "Stevens Maynard" All Stevens ever made was this toy, and another much better boys' rifle called the Marksman. Both are underlever-operated tip-down actions, but the similarity to the real Maynard ends there.

The story of the buyout is worth repeating. Joshua Stevens was one of plank owners of Massachusetts Arms, but who soon after the Civil War went off to found his own firm. When Massachusetts Arms went bankrupt in 1892, Joshua bought it to make sure that Dr. Maynard's wife and heirs would be protected financially, and to keep the workers employed. Easy to do since both firms were in Chicopee Falls, but not in keeping with the usual cut-throat competition that characterized the firearms industry of the time.

I've been collecting and researching boys' rifles for some years now, but I have never seen a Maynard Jr. worth the asking price. They were super-cheap, and consequently were not treated with any respect. But consider this: There was a version of the Maynard Jr. that was a smoothbore, specifically for .22 shot cartridges. I'd bet they accounted for a serious reduction in the sparrow population wherever they were sold. So it would be right and proper to salvage a ruined bore by running a reamer through to smooth it up, and then stock up on shot cartridges.

Hmmm - thinking about it now. . . . . The stock on a Marksman (Model 12 or it's sister the Model 101) is mighty similar. I wonder if they'd interchange?

Egad, I'm wordy today. Cabin fever from the lockdown?

[marlinman93]

Glad you are because firearms history is not just interesting, but also important to remember! I love it myself as much as I love the guns!

[Deadeye Bly]

There is one in 22 Short on Gunbroker now for $300, Wow!. The stock looks like a flat board with rounded edges. It appears to be walnut and it has a butt plate.

[uscra112]

That one looks pretty good. But as usual the bore is poor.

[marlinman93]

There seems to be a large number of sellers these days who think anything old is worth big bucks. It used to be that most guys felt certain guns we referred to as "boy's rifles" were very cheaply made, and cheaply priced when new, and were still comparably cheap as used guns. Most were used up, roughly treated because of their value, and still valued low. But now they're suddenly considered collectible old single shots, even in rough condition, and poor bores. It's very hard to find any boy's gun in .22 rf that has a decent shootable bore. The vast majority were rarely cleaned, and shot with corrosive powders, so they ended up with very bad bores.
I've passed up a multitude of these boy's rifles over the years for around $50-$60, and now wish I'd just bought them and piled them in a corner considering what some people are willing to pay for them.

[Chev. William]

There seems to be a large number of sellers these days who think anything old is worth big bucks. It used to be that most guys felt certain guns we referred to as "boy's rifles" were very cheaply made, and cheaply priced when new, and were still comparably cheap as used guns. Most were used up, roughly treated because of their value, and still valued low. But now they're suddenly considered collectible old single shots, even in rough condition, and poor bores. It's very hard to find any boy's gun in .22 rf that has a decent shootable bore. The vast majority were rarely cleaned, and shot with corrosive powders, so they ended up with very bad bores.
I've passed up a multitude of these boy's rifles over the years for around $50-$60, and now wish I'd just bought them and piled them in a corner considering what some people are willing to pay for them.

The old J. Stevens barrels I have purchased over the years seem to have pitted interiors ond shallow remaining rifling in them, BUT with thorough cleaning to remove accumulated dirt, rust and Lead deposits before shooting all seem to still retain the ability to hit targets at reasonable distances (up to around 100 yards for me now) in spite of their interior appearances.

I would guess these were not cleaned religiously when they were in their first or second owners' hands, and were probably kept near the door of the family home to take care of vermin and varmints on the home farm.
Another use was to bag "pot meat" during the Depression before WW2 with practical accuracy of one shot one kill desired as cartridges were 'relatively expensive' at the time.

Chev. William

[Drm50]

I’m waiting for reality to kick back in on a lot of used gun prices. It has seemed that the chapter on condition has been overlooked. This CV19 is going to put a lot of toys in the market. Real collectors pieces will pretty well hold their value. These quasi, vintage, etc guns that aren’t even shooter grade are going to take a major hit. Guys holding a bunch of these is going suffer the Beanie Baby syndrome and loose their shirts.

[Reverend Al]

I've been monitoring firearms auctions up here in Canada and prices have been crazy high lately. There are a large number of online bidders with most gun shops closed and all of our gun shows cancelled this year so they are desperate to buy SOMETHING is seems ...

[Bent Ramrod]

I recall seeing a picture of an actual Stevens Maynard in one of Grant’s books. He speculated that it was a toolroom model made at Stevens after they took over Massachusetts Arms, to assess the possibility of manufacturing them at Stevens’ factory.

The hand work necessary to fit the Maynard together would have made it the most expensive in-house competition for the regular product line ever conceived. So it was a one-off rarity.

The flimsy little Maynard Jr. is interesting primarily as an example of what you could get away with when black powder .22s were all that could be bought. For someone wanting a good-condition specimen to complete a wall full of “Boy’s Rifles,” $300 wouldn’t be out of line. A shooter wanting an underlever break-open would do much better, at less cost, with the more common Marksman.

I remember the years of Carter Inflation, where after a year, your 5-3/4% savings account would buy less, even with the interest added, than it would have at the beginning of the year. And you got taxed on the interest, too, you greedy Capitalist, you! Every corroded treasure on every gun show table was suddenly “worth” what a pristine specimen advertised in Shotgun News was going for, at least as far as the hopeful table holder was concerned.

All this freshly-printed money being handed out for “Virus Relief” is certainly going to be an inflation driver, so I would expect the price of any “collectible” to take a jump like they did back then.

[marlinman93]

I don't follow the online auctions much, but I do see some exceptions to the norm both ways as it concerns collectible old single shot rifles. Some go crazy high, and some go crazy cheap. But overall fine collectible single shots are down in value, and every dealer who has been selling for any length if time will tell you they're getting less for them today than they did a decade ago.
In the last decade I've seen beautiful, rare, old single shots that I only dreamed of owning for prices I finally knew I could afford. I've picked up more wish list guns in the last decade than I picked up my entire 5 decades of collecting. And only because they're down in value to a point I could finally afford them.
There are still occasional guns that surprise me at what they go for when the hammer drops. But there are far more that go much lower than they did in years past.

[foesgth]

Danth,


PM me your address and I will trace mine and mail it to you. It should be easy to make one from an old fence board!

[Danth]

Thanks much. PM inbound.

[foesgth]

My Manyard is too small for me. However, my wife thinks it is just right! I shoot a Stevens Favorite. They are both accurate for 100+ year old rifles. I was practicing on the rimfire silhouette range today. I got 2 out of 5 rams with the original sights. I think if I got an aperture sight I would do much better. I have an addiction to old single shot rifles. The biggest problem is finding ammo they like. Standard velocity 22 are hard to extract. I have been using CCI Quiet and they will extract.

[Danth]

The Maynard project is coming along fine, but I picked up another which prompts this question. Clearly, the wood on most Maynard Jrs. is nothing more than a shaped board with rounded corners. Every once in a while one comes along with a contoured stock. This last Maynard has the contoured stock. Anyone know the history of flat vs contoured stocks for the Maynard Jr? Could this be a Little Scout stock that coincidentally fits the Maynard?

[uscra112]

The contoured one is later, but because all the Stevens records were destroyed we can only guess at dates.

[Chev. William]

My Manyard is too small for me. However, my wife thinks it is just right! I shoot a Stevens Favorite. They are both accurate for 100+ year old rifles. I was practicing on the rimfire silhouette range today. I got 2 out of 5 rams with the original sights. I think if I got an aperture sight I would do much better. I have an addiction to old single shot rifles. The biggest problem is finding ammo they like. Standard velocity 22 are hard to extract. I have been using CCI Quiet and they will extract.

You might be 'fighting' the residue from firing shorts in a long chamber. That can result in a ring of hard carbon build up in the chamber, resulting 8nhard extraction of longs, or long rifles, fired later.

Your chamber may need a very heavy cleaning to remove such a deposit.

Chev. William