How about a Stevens Favorite

[drjjpdc]

This gun is a lot of fun and you don't have to be kid sized to shoot it.

https://i.imgur.com/XsxubSw.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/09Trt3V.jpg

[Gtek]

Something about those has always tweaked me a bit, looks like an excellent example. Classics are just cool!

[Bigslug]

I picked up one of the solid frame Model 30's from the 1990's 4-5 years ago. A mite less classy than yours, but they are fun little giggle-makers.

[Bad Ass Wallace]

Can't decide between my Stevens Favourite and The Remington No.4 rolling block - both great little 22's.

[ndnchf]

Great fun, and still affordable too. Great find.

[gewehrfreund]

Can't decide between my Stevens Favourite and The Remington No.4 rolling block - both great little 22's.

I'd go with the Rem. No. 4, but to each his own.

I'd also add the Hopkins & Allen 922 to that list. A great little, underappreciated true falling block 22 rimfire. :bigsmyl2:

I almost bought a nice one this weekend, but the bore was just a little too gone and I don't need any more project guns!

[Scrounge]

No, guys! You all need to stop collecting Stevens Favorites! That way I can afford to buy more of them! ;)

Bill

[Jedman]

I once bought a early 1894 model favorite that someone carved a squirrel and some acorns on the butt stock and also had a broken mainspring for about as much as a good meal would cost for yourself.
I got a new spring for it thru Wisners and got it shooting but with the crude sights I couldn’t hit much with it so I put it on my table at a gun show for sale.
It got plenty of attention and the guy that bought it must have been 90 + years old and had the shakeiest hands I have ever seen. He must have bought it for a wall hanger but seemed to really fall in love with it.
I have owned a early side lever Crackshot and other Stevens boys rifles but they have all been shot to death and the actions were loose.

Jedman

[John Taylor]

I get a lot of Favorits and #4s in for liners. The first rifle I owned was a #4 that my father picked up at a second hand store. He walked in as the owner was going through an old trunk that he just got in. The rifle was rolled up in a blanket in the bottom of the trunk. My father bought the rifle for $8 and gave it to my older brother. Didn't take long for my brother to figure out that it was not big enough to hunt deer so he put the word out on his paper rout that he wanted a center fire rifle. One of the old men customers sold him an 1892 Win. for $35 and the #4 was then handed to me. It still had all the color case and blue, looked almost new. My oldest daughter has it now and maybe one of the grand-kids will get it someday.

[uscra112]

The whole world loved Favorites. Nobody knows how many they made but it must have been over a million.

The 1915 Favorite is not as pretty but it is much stronger than the 1894 variety. Wider link handles the firing stress better.

A "loose" Favorite can be tightened up by installing new, oversize pins in the linkage. I use 4mm pins that I get from McMaster-Carr, along with the requisite reamers.

Favorites are easy to rebarrel or reline. Use a competition reamer (I bought a Lilja) and they can be very accurate.

A .25 caliber Favorite can usually be converted to .22 without altering the breechblock.

Would you guess that I have over half a dozen in various models and calibers?

[pworley1]

They are names Favorites for a reason.

[uscra112]

Stevens had a knack for naming their boys' rifles. Favorite, Crackshot, Little Scout, Marksman. The Favorite name was first used for the now-rare "sideplate" model, first made about 1892. They really got rolling with the solid-frame model in 1894, and by 1896 they had made a 100,000. At which point they gave up serial-numbering and went to a three digit code with a letter preceding. That must have rolled over several times a year.

[John Boy]

Stevens had a knack for naming their boys' rifles. Favorite, Crackshot, Little Scout, Marksman …
Have them all ,,,

[uscra112]

Going after every Stevens model is a rabbit-hole I've never gone down. I do have one of every version of the Favorite, though.

[single shot jimmy]

I used to have several but sold them years ago when the prices were going up. I prefer bigger 44 models and have 4, I think.

32-40 in an early 7 o'clock extractor model.

287502

[uscra112]

Would be interested to know serial number of that Model 44, and does it have the lugged hammer.

[Kylongrifle32]

Just finished going thru 100 rounds in both of my model 30's. Getting ready for opening day of squirrel season next Saturday. I have one with an octagon barrel and one with a round barrel. The 1915 favorite I have was a 25 RF that someone rebarreled to 22 magnum. I have 300 rounds thru it and still going strong.

[pietro]

.

Because I wanted a trouble-free sample, two years ago I bought this NIB Model 71 favorite for my middle Grandson (I have two, one younger; one older)

If they had two Favorites, I'd have bought another for myself.

http://cdn2.armslist.com/sites/armslist/uploads/posts/2013/08/07/1970286_01_stevens_favorite_model_71_coll_640.jpg

[uscra112]

Just finished going thru 100 rounds in both of my model 30's. Getting ready for opening day of squirrel season next Saturday. I have one with an octagon barrel and one with a round barrel. The 1915 favorite I have was a 25 RF that someone rebarreled to 22 magnum. I have 300 rounds thru it and still going strong.

I wouldn't have done that. I guess I've been underestimating the 1915 all these years.

Must have a pretty stiff hammer spring to fire that thick WMR brass. A stiff spring puts a lot of pressure on the sear and hammer notch. Originals are just case hardened mild steel, and I'd worry that wear would be a problem. The Model 30 was oiffered in .22 WMR, so hopefully they used better steel, properly hardened.

[uscra112]

I think it was Allyn Tedmon who wrote about how Axel Petersen fitted up a Favorite for his little daughter. He noted the she was able to give the adults a run for their money with it at 50 yards, offhand. "You take a goot barrel, you fit 'em goot an' tight, an' she shoot goot".

[Mk42gunner]

"You take a goot barrel, you fit 'em goot an' tight, an' she shoot goot".

Wise words indeed.

Young eyes and about a bajillion rounds of familiarity and practice also help a lot.

Robert

[Scrounge]

I once bought a early 1894 model favorite that someone carved a squirrel and some acorns on the butt stock and also had a broken mainspring for about as much as a good meal would cost for yourself.
I got a new spring for it thru Wisners and got it shooting but with the crude sights I couldn’t hit much with it so I put it on my table at a gun show for sale.
It got plenty of attention and the guy that bought it must have been 90 + years old and had the shakeiest hands I have ever seen. He must have bought it for a wall hanger but seemed to really fall in love with it.
I have owned a early side lever Crackshot and other Stevens boys rifles but they have all been shot to death and the actions were loose.

Jedman

I grew up (literally!) with an 1889 model in .22LR. Most of my younger siblings and I learned to shoot rifles with that particular octagonal barrel Stevens Favorite, and I still have it. I was my dad's first rifle, which he bought when he was 13. It was broken when he bought it, and he bubba'd it to get it to shoot. When I finally took possession of it again, after it spent a couple more decades with my dad, he said it was shot out, and that we shouldn't use it anymore. One day, disassembled it again for a cleaning. I found that the breechblock screw he'd brazed a new head on when he was a boy had stretched a bit. The extractor was still there, but the the tip had broken off long ago. When we were growing up you could pull a fired shell out with your fingernail, but it was requiring a knife point. So I ordered an extractor, and a couple of screws from Wisner's, and put it back together. It shoots just fine! Breech locks up tight! YaY!!! Once my shop is fixed up a bit more, I'll be fitting that extractor. It has been fired with .22 Short and BB & CB caps quite a bit, so there was a ring in the chamber. That has been cleaned up a bit. I've also acquired a 1915 model in .32 Long RF, and a Crackshot model 26 in .32 short RF to play with.

My kids are all adults now, but I'm hoping to let the bookends learn to shoot a rifle with that one one of these days. Youngest just started shooting pistols late last year, for her job. She got promoted to supervisor because she's now CLEET certified. I still need a set of 9mm boolit molds, and then she's going to learn how to cast boolits and reload, too.

[uscra112]

"1889" series extractor from Wisners should be a drop-in.

Look on Gunbroker for listings by Jack Harrison >tenmile< for brass and bullets for your .32s. Easiest to search for >299153< which will avoid all the irrelevant hits you get if you simply search >32 rimfire<. Jack's stuff is first-rate, and a LOT cheaper than the other sources. (I've got several .32 rimfires, and have converted a 1915 to centerfire.)

https://www.gunbroker.com/item/907781816

Despite what Jack says, use "acorn blanks" in the adapters, with a pinch (1.5 to 2.00 grains) of Bullseye. Nailgun charges are cheaper, but punching out the spent ones is hard on the adapters.

https://www.gundogsupply.com/walther-22-cal-6mm-acorn-blank.html

[Scrounge]

"1889" series extractor from Wisners should be a drop-in.

Look on Gunbroker for listings by Jack Harrison >tenmile< for brass and bullets for your .32s. Easiest to search for >299153< which will avoid all the irrelevant hits you get if you simply search >32 rimfire<. Jack's stuff is first-rate, and a LOT cheaper than the other sources. (I've got several .32 rimfires, and have converted a 1915 to centerfire.)

https://www.gunbroker.com/item/907781816

Despite what Jack says, use "acorn blanks" in the adapters, with a pinch (1.5 to 2.00 grains) of Bullseye. Nailgun charges are cheaper, but punching out the spent ones is hard on the adapters.

https://www.gundogsupply.com/walther-22-cal-6mm-acorn-blank.html

I have been working my way to converting them to .32CF in the appropriate lengths, have around 120 rounds of swaged .32 s&w brass to convert the to .32 Long & Short Colt. Still looking for a piece of 51XX steel I can make new CF breechblocks out of, but may just do mild steel and case-harden. I don't want to alter the original blocks, so they could be reconverted back to RF is this doesn't work out. Also have an appropriate heeled boolit mold, and reasonable load data. One blockage to the plan is needing to clean and organize my workshop. Been working on that for months, but was stumped a bit by an appropriate cabinet for my Atlas lathe. I got that more or less done earlier this week, now need to move the Atlas lathe to its cabinet, and the HF mini-lathe to the cabinet the Atlas has been sitting on. Then put everything away where it should go, and I may need to get some more cabinets and shelves installed.

The Wisners extractor for the .22 is not quite a drop-in. It's maybe .010 wider than the old one, just eye-balling it. I've got the stuff to do the fitting, but I've not done anything like this before, so want to have the area set up, organized, and ready to work before I start. I don't want to mess it up, and I do want it done just exactly right. Which might possibly mean I've grown up a bit since the last time I thought about doing something like this. ;) I somehow also talked my brother into buying a very nice Crackshot 26 that I'm going to make a breechblock for, too. And giving him some of my brass when it's all properly set up. If I don't blow myself up first. :bigsmyl2:

I'm not a machinist. I have been taking a class for a while, and I've been one sort of mechanic or another for most of the past 50-some years, in addition to a bit of amateur gunsmithing. So I'm invoking Alan Shepard's Prayer. "Please, God, don't let me screw this up!"

Bill

[uscra112]

Making the adapters isn't as easy as it might look. I know Jack went through a teething period before he got his tooling sorted out. I make CF .32 Colt myself, but I would still buy adapters from him if I need any more.

Breechlock doesn't need to be fancy steel. It doesn't even need to be casehardened, except for handling wear. But it DOES need to be properly fitted, so that it contacts the shoulders in the frame as the action closes. This takes most of the thrust load off the pivot screw, and also eases the load on the link somewhat. The LINK does want to be of a better steel than Stevens used. The weak point in the design is the holes in the link. They get battered oval from the firing loads. The link in the 1889 and 1894 models is too narrow, also. Compare with the 1915 which is almost twice as wide. O-2 tool steel is good, even in the annealed state. If you can, harden it to about R30. Use bigger pins, too. 4mm dowel pins from McMaster-Carr are perfect for the Favorite. Ream the breechblock and lever .1570, and the link .1575.

Phil

[John Taylor]

I made a breach block for a model 44 several years back out of heat treated 4140. It cuts easy with carbide and doesn't need any heat treat after machining. Might also check with Wisner, he mentioned a few years back that he was thinking of making breach blocks for the Favorite.

[ulav8r]

I bought a Favorite in 1979 for $25. It needed a lot of work, the bore and chamber are extremely bad and the screws, pins and linkage are very loose. I have acquired a liner, but nothing will be done to it fat at least 2 more years. Have to get a house finished enough that I can move in, then get my equipment set up and running. I think it is a 1915 model but it has been long enough since I looked at it that I am not sure.

[ndnchf]

As stated above, making your own adapter case is a lot of work. Jack's cases are very nice. I have bought and recommend them. But I'll also say that as you are learning to use your lathe, making your own adapter case is a great practice exercise. I'm not a machinist by any stretch, just a home tinkerer. But last month I decided to try to make my own .41 rimfire short case for a deringer. To my surprise, it turned out well. I've loaded and shot it 8 times so far and it has held up fine. Give it a try.

[John Taylor]

Nice job!

[stubshaft]

One of the few guns I regret selling was my old 22 lr. Favorite.

[uscra112]

You can always buy another. Plenty to go around.

[Duckiller]

Where? I am 78 years old and except for a dealer that was going to jail I have never seen a Favorite. Above dealer had a child version that I passed on. Said dealer went to a gun show in Arizonia and something bad happened and he ended up in jail, guest of the President for awhile. I have a bunsh of 22s but I still haven't found a Favorite.

[uscra112]

Look on Gunbroker - there's at least half a dozen on offer at any given moment.

All the good "old stuff" has vanished from gun shows, not just Favorites. It's all on-line now.

Hint: A .25 Favorite can be relined to .22, and 90% of the time will work without altering the firing pin. If it does need alteration, it's a very easy job.

Another Hint: A Favorite with a floppy lever can be tightened up by installing oversize link pins. Reamers and pins will cost you about $50 from McMaster-Carr.

[single shot jimmy]

Would be interested to know serial number of that Model 44, and does it have the lugged hammer.
You already have it from the assra forum.

[Old Harv]

Recently picked up a nice Stevens Crack-shot, 32 Rim Fire Long...good condition. I haven't shot one since the early 50's. Ammo is scarce, and way over priced. I'd just like to shoot it 4 or 5 times....

I was wondering if any of you old shooters have any setting around. I'd pay a reasonable price per round for 5 rounds...

[uscra112]

Reloadable adapters make the .32 RF shootable again. Search 299153 on Gunbroker.

Beware of any Navy Arms .32 RF. I bought a box (also on Gunbroker) for a swingeing price, and had a bunch of burst rims, shooting it in a nice, tight Favorite.

[Bigslug]

I get a lot of Favorits and #4s in for liners.

With the same level of seriousness and respect when I speak these words to our veterans:

"Thank you for your service"

A world without these classic single shots would suck royally, and they weren't built for five generations worth of serious shooting - or at least not for surviving five generations of kids learning gun care (or neglect).

[bedbugbilly]

First 22 I had was my Dad's 1915 Stevens Favorite. It went through a fire and the buttstock was scorched pretty bad so I made a want replacement for it - I believe I was about 12 when I made the new stock. I still have the rifle and have been thinking of restoring it properly. I shot shorts out of it and took a number of tree rats and rabbits with it. Truly a real classic.