While looking for a 30 WCF bolt gun this one came across my prow and was too good to pass up. It is in excellent overall condition although the collector (HA!) value was taken with the holes drilled for the scope mount. Complete with a vintage Lyman All-American 4x scope and covers. The stock wear is limited to palm-sweat discoloration, no dings and nary a scratch, recoil pad installed, and the bore is perfect. Barrel length is 21.5 inches.
After a half-dozen passes with Hoppes and Wipe-out, the patches came out clean. Whoever owned this rifle fired it darned little and cleaned it well. The trigger is...well...atrocious, breaking like a foot-thick stalagtite at 8 lbs. Gonna take some work. The chamber throat slugged at .311 with a .085 throat; the bore slugged at .3085/.3105 and has a 1-14 twist. The NOE 311175FN (Saeco 315) engraves very nicely with its .312 base and .307 bands; my 311299 not so well with the .302 nose. The 311041 should work well too; my 311284 isn't going fit.
The bolt is a collection of rings mounting the bolt guide, sticking out and rubbing against the action. I'm going to reduce these parts to slick up the bolt a bit. Some fine abrasive in oil should help as well. The stock will need bedding but I want to shoot it a bit to see how it is as-configured with the barrel band screw bedding. Some folks have brazed metal between the trigger guard housing to mount a rear-action bedding screw. I might flirt with using a Hogue grip screw used to go over a S&W frame cross-pin into which the Hogue bottom mounting screw fits.
Just under $300 OTD and in this condition I was happy to find it in this condition with a great scope and bore. Hey, it even has a Mannlicher bolt! Stevens quit making these in 1949, and I fancy it was made in 1948, my birth year. Retailed for a little under $100 back then, can you believe that is $1,000 in 2015 dollars? $300 of 2015 dollars would have been $30 1949 dollars, so I got a great 1949 deal...yeah, that's the ticket....
Shooting report to follow next week. Sorry about the upside-down pics.....