Featured Gun: Riverside Arms Double Barrel Shotgun

 

This month's featured gun is the Riverside Arms double barrel shotgun. 

Riverside Arms is a trade name of the J. Stevens Arms and Tool Company, first appearing in their catalog in 1914. The hammerless shotgun, featured here, is based on the G.S. Lewis patent # 1,136,246 awarded April 20th, 1915 and is better known as the Stevens model 311 except with less refined finish and hardwood stocks in lieu of the walnut of the Stevens branded guns.

The shotguns were offered in the three most popular gauges: 12, 16 and 20 gauge.

J. Stevens Arms and Tool Company was founded on the banks of the Chicopee River in Chicopee Falls, Massachusetts in 1964. Founder Joshua Stevens passed away in 1907 and in 1915 the company was sold to New England Westinghouse, a newly formed subsidiary of Westinghouse Corp of Pittsburg, formed to make Mosin-Nagant Rifles for the Imperial Russian Army.

The plan didn't go the way they thought it would, thanks to the tyrannical nature of the Czar Nicolas and an enterprising grifter by the name a Valdimir Lenin, the Imperial Russian Government was overthrown in 1917 and no payment was ever made, and the remaining rifles stateside were sold to the U.S. Government.

After the war, in April of 1920, Savage Arms bought the rights to the J. Stevens Arms Co patents as well as the buildings and tooling. They immediately began producing the J. Stevens and Riverside branded firearms.

In 1925 they added a .410 bore option

Around 1930 Savage quit using the Riverside trade name, swapping it for the Springfield name.

By 1948 the Springfield name was dropped, and the Stevens 311 was now the cheaper version of the better finished Fox model B (due to Savage buying the Fox Shotgun Co.).

Production was later moved to Westfield, MA, then in 1989 the model 311 was discontinued.

I was introduced to this gun when a friend asked me to clean up his Father's shotgun, a Riverside Arms 12 gauge.

The gun was covered in a thin velvet of rust.

The gun was made between 1920 and 1930 when Savage/Stevens quit using the Riverside name.