I got a chance to get to my first rifle, and figured I’d put up a few pics…
I received this one in 1959 when I was eight.
It’s a Stevens Crack Shot 26, made sometime after 1913. Not sure what year it was actually bought and brought into the family, that is lost in the mists of time. I was told I was the third one in the family to get it. It has an 18 inch barrel, and the stock has never been cut. It also has fixed iron sights, and was pretty damn accurate!!!
I know I put literally thousands of rounds through it over the next four+ years, and I remember paying something like $.50 a box for 50 rounds of .22 long (that is a BUNCH of coke bottles, etc. at $.02 a bottle)… It got much better when I started mowing lawns at age 11, I was RICH! I think I was getting $3 a yard…
It is a falling block, takedown version with the 22 barrel bored off center so the firing pin will strike the rim of the 22LR cartridge on its lower edge. My conjecture is that off center drilling allowed the placement of the firing pin in the falling block to allow a center fire version to be made without having to re-design any parts of the action, Since I’ve never seen one of the old Stevens 25-20, I don’t know if that is true or not…
But if you look at this picture, you’ll note the 22 long rifle designation is in larger alphanumeric that the rest of the roll mark…
This one is not real pretty, as I beat the hell out of it as a kid. I know I dropped it in a couple of creeks, and I’m pretty sure I dropped it out of a tree at least once…
But, having said that, I killed a many a can with this thing, and quite a few (well a few) squirrels and a bunch of frogs over the years…
And this is really what I credit with my ability as a rifle shooter, is all the time I spent in the fields and woods with this little rifle… Eventually it will go to my grandson after I get the sear replaced (I’ve worn it down to a hair trigger, and I DO mean hair trigger)…
