How good are Stevens rifles?

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I'm looking at purchasing a cheap varmit rifle for coyotes that is more powerful then a .22mag and legal to carry in New Brunswick after deer season.

I've decided on .223 caliber simple because of price, the 22-250 was my second choice but the cost on ammo is so much more I can't justify the purchase.

If those of you that own any caliber of Stevens rifles can tell me how you feel they operate, cycle rounds, accuracy, I'd like to know. Feel free to let me know where you feel they are weak, what makes them cheap, etc...


Thanks

Jake
 
I have one in 22-250 and i am very happy with it. ive never had any cycling or feeding problems and it will shoot 1 inch groups. the trigger needed a little fine tuning for my liking and i knocked down the molding seam on the stock cause it was kinda sharp and i painted the stock black. other than that it works excellent. a friend of mine bought the same rifle and has had the same results.
reliable and accurate
 
oh yeah..............in our closest walmart store we buy 40 rnd packs of 22-250 for $22. only a couple bucks more than the 223 and i prefer the 22-250, i think its worth the little extra. but the 223 is a great choice too
 
I got 1 in .243win. It cycles rounds just fine. I did some mods to my trigger for sear engagement and for know overtravel. It shoots the Rem 90Gr BTip under 1". The stocks got some pretty rough mold lines though. I sanded and then painted my stock.

Stevens%2520200%2520243.jpg
 
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I have one in .22-250 and.7-08

The .22-250 is accurate as I need a varmint rifle to be. The 7-08 is a little powerhouse and I am fairly impressed by this cartridge.


They are one of the better entry level rifles.

However, I got tired of looking at the grey stock and picked up a boyds for the 7-08.

The white box winchester ammo for the .22-250 has very similar results to the 55gr hornady V-max. (great for plinking and gophers. Too much for coyotes) The advertised fps is 4000fps in the 22-250. I bet it is closer to 3600FPS though. I have not chronied them to find out.

If I were to buy another rifle in either caliber, I would take a good hard look at the remigton SPS. It has more to offer.
 
The look-n-feel of the stocks can be improved 1000% by taking the mould lines off with a file or rasp, sanding it down and arma-coating (or regulat paint). Triggers are tweakable and can also be greatly improved by investing a little time.
 
I had one in .223 and it was a great little rifle. Trigger was horrible and stock was terrible but heh...it was only $319 and shot MOA.
I did something like Prosper mentioned and knocked off the sharp edges and painted it with Krylon and it looked and felt better. Throw a Timney Trigger on it and it would be a great varmint gun.

Cheers!!
 
Best value going. You can clean up the mold marks on the stock quite easily, and both of mine shoot sub moa with factory loads. The factory trigger can be tweaked or replaced, I did one each way.

I'm told the Rem SPS has a thinner barrel than other 700 models, so if it's for high volume gopher shooting be aware it might heat up quickly.
 
Two guys I hunt with use the Savage package guns. These guns undercut the Remington guns for price and zero. One guy got a B&C Mulie with his box stock Savage and cheapo scope. Excellant accuracy and reliability.

As funny as it seems, Stevens is trying underprice Savage. But they are both the same gun underneath the markings. Just fewer improvements than Savage is putting on.
 
The Stevens parts come out of the same runs on the machinery as the Savage parts. They do runs of a set number of gloss barrels for example, to fill an order for a certain model of Savage that doesn't need the full run of parts, and the leftover barrels from that run get used for the Stevens models.

So you may get one stevens with a gloss finish, the next might be matte, but they will both be very accurate and the same quality as any other Savage.
 
I have owned 4 Stevens 200's and 2 Remy sps's Every Stevens shot great as did the sps's. The only thing the Remington has to offer is maybe more aftermarket add ons and to me a touch more of an attractive firearm. If these points are worth an extra 200.00, go with the sps. If not, the Stevens is an awesome value that hasn't been seen in the firearms industry for a long time.
 
There is more than one model of SPS, the detachable mag model for example is $599. That's probably the reason for the different prices you've each seen.
Click to expand...

.............Correct. I have owned two of the three. The floor plate model is currently 519.00 The stainless is nothing to write home about. Its a rough finish.
 
prosper said:
You can buy two stevens for the price of an SPS, they're over $600 MSRP now
Click to expand...

I will change my previous comment then. Pick up 2 stevens for the price of the sps:)

I found that dry firing the stevens a lot (20-30 minutes straight) helps with the factory trigger.

There is a way to adjust it yourself by taking some material off. I'd rather get a timney for it though.
 
You can get a rifle basix replacement trigger at wholesale sports, I paid $125 when the stevens was first released. Still cheaper than the sps. ;)

With my second one I adjusted the weight of pull down then did a bunch of dry firing and it's much better than it was.

I'm going to bed the stocks soon, and will remove the trigger assembly for this process. I'll see if I can polish up the contact surfaces with the dremel before I re-assemble it.

If anyone plans to try the same, keep in mind there is an extremely thin layer of hardened material on these trigger parts so it is much safer to just replace the unit. Removing material is not recommended unless you have the ability to reharden the surface afterwards.
 
Ok, couldn't resist. I took the factory trigger apart on my 270 and polished all the contact points tonight, being careful not to remove much or change the angles. It definitely is smoother now. :)

It took me a bit to get it back together, but it's not as bad as the first time putting a M305 bolt together. ;)
 
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