Stevens 200 7mm-08
 

Got a Stevens 200 in 7mm-08. Planning on getting it together and shooting it this week/weekend.

Will be used in PA this year until I put a tag on something.

I'll get some photos up after I get it to the range. Excited to play with the 7mm-08. I've long considered it to be ideal deer medicine.

-Jake

Well ...I was disappointed. I've had probably 10 of these Stevens 200s and they've all been great shooters. One,a .22-250, had some feeding issues if I remember correctly. But they've all grouped well.

This rifle did not. Bad actually.

The scope, a Bushnell Nitro, was really nice. Ignore the big sun shade thing it won't be staying.



I remembered at the end that I had this post and needed to take pictures so fired the last four from the box. That's pretty representative of what it did for the whole box though.

-Jake

Definitely atypical of Stevens’ reputation. Any plans for where to go from here? Different ammo, per chance? Or scuttling the project?

Do Savage small shank barrels fit a Stevens?...I thought they did and they are simple to swap.

If that front base is touching the lug it might be part of the problem.

My experience with the others had all been good.

I really haven't thought about what's next or shot it enough to even try to diagnose anything yet. I took three shots to quickly get it on paper then had some kids there shooting multiple rifles and muzzleloaders (a couple .50cal inlines, a couple 20ga, a .350 legend and this 7mm-08 and then some .22s as well. )

I didn't pay much attention to the targets as we were shooting multiple things with different people. When we were done and I was cleaning up I noticed the 7mm-08 was all over the paper. And everyone was shooting decent groups with everything else.

So I set a box up and put the last four rounds from a box through it and that was the result. I quickly verified that everything was tight and nothing was moving.

I suppose next step will be get it out with some different ammo and see what happens. I was shooting the "American whitetail" Hornady 139s.

Possibly pull the scope and try another one on the rifle just to make sure the scope isn't bad.

Hopefully I can get it shooting well. Plans were to stick this in a different stock and hang onto it for a while as I've wanted a 7mm-08 for whitetail for a long time.

I'm certainly open to suggestions. Looks like I was doing a "box drill" to see how the scope was tracking lol

-Jake

Yes. Easy to swap barrels on these.

-Jake

I'll have to take a look at it tomorrow and see. The bases are correct for the rifle. So I would assume that they're ok.

But I'll pull it out and verify.

-Jake

The day wasn't a total loss in finding new hunting toys.

Picked up a used smoothbore "slug"(smoothbore with rifle sights on it) barrel for a Mossberg 20ga.

Using the cheap (nothing's cheap anymore) Winchester superX rifled slugs it shot some decent groups at 50 yards.

Not bad for a smooth bore open sight slug gun.




Don't know if it'll ever get carried, but it's good to know it'll shoot and is an option. Maybe some season if I've already tagged a buck I'll pull it out and slap a doe with it.

-Jake

Jake bring it up the camp during the early ML season and I'll bring up some of my handloads both 139 gr and 154 gr and see how it shoots them. We can set up a table and chair and get close to 100 yards.
My grandson has a Savage 16 and I have a Browning Micro Hunter - both in 7-08. His shoots the 154 gr best but and mine likes the 139s.
About your shotgun...I played with various slugs with an open sighted 87 smooth bore and it shot the Federal Tru Ball the best.

Well... This rifle got moved to the back of the safe and forgot about through deer season and the holidays. I started messing with it again.

After some research I realized the rifle probably had a 11.5" twist. Verified that. Others had issues shooting 140s. So I picked up 120s.

Nice tight groups-as initially expected. Kinda bummed I'm limited to 120s- but it shoots them well and the deer won't care for them any.

Haven't decided if I'll keep it or not. Probably will hunt with it this fall though.

-Jake