Stevens "Maynard Junior"?

[Bigslug]

Not long ago, my father acquired a Civil War era .52-50 Maynard Carbine and we got it up and shooting (very well, I might add).

Like a number of more famous Civil War guns, the Maynard mechanism made the jump to modern-style centerfire, where it enjoyed a bit of success as a target rifle action.

What I did NOT know until a couple days ago when fiddling around on Gunbroker was that the Savage/Stevens line included one of these that very closely resembled their Favorite line, except of course, it's a break action instead of a falling block. The action appears to be a sandwich of sideplates and inner workings, and the sights rudimentary dovetail blocks that could have been stolen off any of a hundred modern pistols.

"NEAT!", I thought. Anybody have or dabbled in and care to discuss?

[cwtebay]

Cool!!!! Any pictures of your dad's rifle?
How did you go about making cartridges?

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[Nobade]

I have one of those Maynard Jr rifles in my drawer at work waiting to be finished. I bought it in very poor condition, and so far have bushed all the pin holes, made new pins, relined the barrel, partially made a new hammer for it, and converted it to work like the CW carbines as a breech loading percussion gun. The idea is to use 22 magnum fired cases, drill tiny holes in the heads, and shoot it with cast bullets and black powder lit by a percussion cap like the originals. Some day maybe I'll get it finished!

[Bigslug]

Cool!!!! Any pictures of your dad's rifle?
How did you go about making cartridges?

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https://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?422287-Any-Maynards-here

293593

293594

Brass can be had for the things, and they simply use a musket cap to send a flame into a hole in the base. Accurate makes a mold that's perfect for the chamber as is. I believe Dad just used his .50-70 dies. WAY less intense than rolling paper tubes. . .which we occasionally do as well.

293595

But anyway, more about the .22 version.

[Battis]

When I got a Maynard .40-40 I did some research. For what it's worth, Stevens/Maynard was in Chicopee, MA: Frank Wesson's factory was in Worchester, MA (42 miles away by train). I'm thinking they worked together on projects.
In the pic: top is a Stevens, then a Maynard, and the bottom is a Wesson. I mentioned the Wesson because it most likely fired a Stevens Everlast case.

[cwtebay]

https://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?422287-Any-Maynards-here

293593

293594

Brass can be had for the things, and they simply use a musket cap to send a flame into a hole in the base. Accurate makes a mold that's perfect for the chamber as is. I believe Dad just used his .50-70 dies. WAY less intense than rolling paper tubes. . .which we occasionally do as well.

293595

But anyway, more about the .22 version.Thank you for your time to post that, pretty darn interesting!!!

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[uscra112]

Stevens had bought out the company that made the Maynard, and was trading on the name. The Maynard Junior wasn't a very good rifle, even by the standards of the time.

The Stevens model which most closely resembles the Maynard in function is the Model 12 Marksman. And its' sibling the centerfire Model 101. Still only resembles - not actually a good copy.

There is nothing like a Maynard, except another Maynard.

[Bigslug]

uscra112 - some good info there.

The impression I got from pics of the two GB listings was that they were going for a cheap boy's rifle that would probably get outgrown before it got worn out. It did, however, pique my interest as it seems like they used Maynard's lever system.

I had thought that the Favorite family was their one and only thing for the single shot kid's guns.

[uscra112]

Oh, by no means. The Favorite was by far the best seller, but there were Crackshots, Little Scouts, Little Krags,the Marksman, and two or three others whose names I forget.

[Bigslug]

Little Krag? Cute. Found some good pics and a vid on that one: http://gunlab.net/looking-at-the-stevens-little-krag-rifle/

Looks sort of inspired by the Winchester/Browning 1900 / 67A family in that it seems to have one spring doing the work for multiple things. That it's a coil spring instead of a leaf in a 1904 design is kind of interesting.

I get a kick out of a lot of these .22 mechanisms. Since they don't carry the engineering burden of chambering small bombs, the inventor's imagination can run a little more wild, and there's been a lot of neat and weird stuff because of it. The Stevens Visible Loader, for instance.

[Battis]

If anyone is interested, there's a .25 Favorite for sale at a store that I buy alot from. From the description, it looks to be in tough shape. Is it worth the money? I haven't seen it. There's no pics online.
https://www.kitterytradingpost.com/new-used-guns/used-guns/rifles/stevens-favorite-pre-owned-1092892.html?cgid=0#start=1

[cwtebay]

If anyone is interested, there's a .25 Favorite for sale at a store that I buy alot from. From the description, it looks to be in tough shape. Is it worth the money? I haven't seen it. There's no pics online.
https://www.kitterytradingpost.com/new-used-guns/used-guns/rifles/stevens-favorite-pre-owned-1092892.html?cgid=0#start=1That seems high for what it is from the description - but I haven't bought one in several years! May be where the market is now. Sleeving the bore is a fairly straightforward endeavour.

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[uscra112]

Not much. NOS .25 Stevens ammo is up over $2 a round now. Some of us are making reloadable .25 Stevens ammo by reforming Hornet brass, but it's labor intensive, requiring a lathe. Only if the bore is very, very good is that Favorite worth anything at all, except as something to rebarrel or reline to a .22.

[Battis]

Can a rimfire be converted to centerfire (as in a Vetterli)?

[cwtebay]

Can a rimfire be converted to centerfire (as in a Vetterli)?https://youtu.be/KfFxjX4jMkU

It absolutely can be done!
But Steve B on here has done a fantastic job of explaining his method of making both reloadable and reloading 32 RF.

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[cwtebay]

https://youtu.be/A8T1q0mSDHE

https://youtu.be/MeQcElAGCBE

Here are a couple of his videos. Hopefully he'll chime in here.

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[uscra112]

Favorites can be converted. Some with little difficulty, some with more. It takes a decent milling machine and some tooling to do it right. John Taylor is the man to do it for you. I've done a couple, but John is so much better at it that I'd send my breechblock to him if ever I wanted to do another.

Poster <tenmile> sells .32 Colt brass on Gunbroker, both centerfire and rimfire adaptors, for reasonable money. He also has the correct Lyman 299153 mold and sells the bullets. https://www.gunbroker.com/item/917000216

There's a good (long) thread on creating .25 Stevens ammo on ASSRA forum, but can't find it just now.

Ah, here it is: https://www.assra.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl?num=1519327136/0

Start around post #52

[Battis]

I went to the store to check it out. While I was at the counter, another guy was interested in it. Come to find out, he collects them, and he's a gunsmith. I asked him some questions about relining it, converting it, etc and he had some pretty detailed answers. He said he's developing a cartridge for it. Anyhoo, I think he bought it, and I left with an Ortgies .25 handgun.

[uscra112]

Well, that Ortgies is interesting enough to keep you busy for a while.

[Battis]

I'd be curious if that other shopper bought the Stevens. It looked "decent" from what I saw of it (busy store) but I never checked the bore. I'm pretty sure he said he was developing a .25 Turnbull cartridge, and he said his shop was in Buxton, Maine where Turnbull Custom Guns is located.
I have another Ortgies in .32 with an extra .380 barrel.
The store had quite a few primers - $8.99 per 100.

[uscra112]

I sure hope he's not going to hot-rod that little Favorite. It's about maxed out as it is.

I might add that we need another micro .25 cartridge like a fish needs a bicycle.

[Battis]

Actually, another guy in the store asked him if a particular .25 cartridge would work (I can't remember what it was) and he said no way, it'd be way too hot for that rifle. He sounded like he knew what he was talking about.