Hello George!
Actually, it's a J. Steven's Arms & Tool Company gun (who also made by them for both Sears and Montgomery Ward's). John M. Browning sold them the design (for the very first hammerless repeater) and the rights for production in 1903, with the first guns being made in early 1904. Savage bought Stevens out of bankruptcy in 1920, but continued to pay the (I believe) annual royalty to Browning's estate in order to continue production. The suspicious fire in Steven's plant in 1919 (arguably, in response to an Inspector's General audit of a WWI production contract) and the subsequent bankruptcy and then purchase by Savage (who also seems to have lost or destroyed any further records of production) has made any understanding of the history of these guns almost impossible to document. By doping out annual sales brochures and examining existing guns (for sale at gun shows or on-line) a few observations can be made about production. The double humpback 520s were made from 1904 thru about 1930, when official production ceased. Parts on-hand continued to be made into guns until about 1932. They had been arguably replaced in 1927 anyway, by the introduction of the more-modern looking Model 620 (w/a more streamlined receiver, much like the Remington Model 10 and the Winchester Model 12). Your gun is the single-hump version, which if anything, is even harder to figure out. Known as the Model 520-30 (or 520a), production appears to have begun in 1930 (thus the 520-30 moniker). Production seems to have continued alongside the 620s for only a few years (up to about 1936-38) when Stevens/Savage eliminated it to focus on the Model 620 only. At the lead-in to the Second World War (1940-41), the War Department (now DoD) approached Savage to have them supply firearms for the coming conflict . Since the tooling and a parts stockpile already existed at Chicopee Falls, production was resumed until just after the War (1946-47).
Last edited by Lloyd3; 05/23/15 09:53 PM.
