doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Stevens "Ranger" DOM?

My son showed up with a Stevens Ranger 16 yesterday. Very nice gun. Showy wood, cut checkering, marked Ranger 101-6 on the left 5100 on the right. No serial # that I can find. marked hvaf several places hv&f being circled. Shoots well , choked full and more so...Anybody have any ideas about date of mfg? Thanks....

"ranger" was a trade marking used by sears and my understanding is it was used up until WWII but not after.

roger

There is a Ranger double listed in the 1927 Sears catalog. Some of their illustrations were a little criss-crossed in that one, so hard to say for sure who made it for them. Same catalog illustrates a sidelock Stevens & a boxlock L C Smith. I seem to recall there were some Fultons marked Ranger. I suspect Rogers pre WWII is correctt, but have no info as to dates of when different makers had the contract for Rangers. Yours is obviously Stevens.

There were indeed Hunter Fultons sold as Rangers, but agree with Miller that the 5100 number makes it a Stevens. Dating Stevens guns, pre-WWII, is pretty difficult I think.

Larry I was hoping you would chime in on this one & thought perhaps might have some info on just when Hunter & Stevens had the contracts with Sears to build their Ranger guns. No such luck looks like.
Miller

i had a stevens 520 (not a 520A) marked ranger and i'd have to look when those went out of production but that would give at least one datum for the earliest date. and right now i've got a marlin 90 that's a "ranger". used to see those quite often in GA. traded my father my savage 430 for it and came up on the short end that time but that wasn't the point.

i cannot find the source where i got it that WWII was the end of the ranger label (as far as sears goes). may have been in a book i no longer own or buried in an old gun digest/shooters bible. as miller noted, the late 20's sprang to mind for the beginning of its use but i've nothing to back it up.

roger

No such luck, Miller. Brophy doesn't say anything about it, other than to mention the fact that Fultons were made for Sears. And like Roger, I've also seen Marlin 90's marked Ranger. If there are any records available, someone could do a good article on all the various doubles sold by Sears, when they were available, etc. Best bet would probably be if someone has a reasonably complete set of Sears catalogs.

i didn't buy it. someone else who was looking at it never put it back on the rack but cabelas had a savage 720 that was marked ranger. was an early type with no goofy "engraving". priced quite cheaply. one can get some decent deals off gunbroker by searching for "ranger" as very many people won't have a clue what the actual gun is and thus won't pay any attention to it.

roger

If it's post-1949 it should have a stamped oval on the bottom of the action nearest the forend containing a letter (date code) and a number (inspector's number). The date codes start with A in '49, B for 1950 and so on.

I also have a Stevens 5100 marked Ranger 101.6. No date code on mine.

I thought the 5100 indicated a Springfield gun. Or is that interchangable with Stevens? Mine is a 16gauge marked 101.6 Sears and Roebuck on one side and 5100 on the other. Tenite stock and forend (makes for a 5-1/2 lb. gun) but kicks a little hard. I never looked for a date code - just assumed it was a post WW-II gun.