Opinions on Stevens 200

[Poe]

Awhile ago I bought a savage prefit barrel in 6 creed for a great deal and I have been looking for a cheap 11 or 10 savage for a donor action. I found a Stevens 200 in 308 that I might be able to get for pretty cheap. Is there any downsides to going with the Stevens over the savage. I believe the Stevens is a internal box magazine but if you remove the stock and the trigger is there any difference between this action and a standard top bolt release model 10

 

[ResearchinStuff]

Probably like 15 years ago that was a recommended super budget approach. Now with prefit capable factory and custom actions it is not something that guys talk about much.

Check out long range hunting, I think they had a Steve's 200 sticky back in the day

 

[ChrisAU]

First rifle I bought was a Stevens 200 270. A couple years ago I put it in a B&C stock, installed a Timber trigger, and Cerakoted and fluted the barreled action. It’s a sweet, albeit heavy, rifle. Action is very smooth for something so cheap. I paid $179 for it due to an Academy ad misprint while I was in college.

 

[vonb]

The Stevens 200 of yesterday is the Savage Axis of today. The one thing the Stevens does not have is ability to have a Savage Accutrigger installed on it. Other aftermarket triggers will work fine. I had a Stevens 200 year ago in .223 and it shot lights out. You won’t go wrong with it. As others said, it’s much smoother than the Axis produced today.

 

[Long84]

I bought a couple of the 200s back when they first came out. Weren't they basic, bare bones, Savage actions with Stevens etched on the bolt?

 

[Fatcamp]

We have had several over the years. The only one left is a .223 that is stupid accurate.

Had a .308 that was never especially precise so rebarrelled it to 6.5 Manbun and it was a pretty nice rifle in a Boyd's stock with a 6X SWFA. Sold it for some reason.

 

[mighteywhitehunter]

I still shoot one, It was originally a Steven's 200 in .243, I hunted with it for quite a few years purchased around 2014, and killed a lot of deer with it. I ended up swapping the barrel out to 6.5 Creed a few years ago when there was a sale on Prefits through McGowan or someone. It is still killing deer to this day. Nothing wrong with them.

 

[vonb]

Couple thoughts on the Stevens. They are great to build off of but you can also run into some challenges with them:

1) Stock screw spacing changed on them sometime during production. Measure yours to make sure you're buying the right stock.
2) The original Stevens were stagger feed magazines. Later models were center feed. Refer to #1 above. The stagger magazines are hard to come by when I was looking them a few years back.
3) Triggers available are Timney and Rifle Basix for after-market. I recommend the Timney. The factory trigger will not adjust much below 4 lbs.