I am wanting an inexpensive small caliber rifle to carry in the truck and tractor to opportunistically shoot feral hogs, coyotes, sick coons etc. Does anyone have experience with the Stevens 200 in small or large caliber. Mostly wondering if the rifle functions OK and if accuracy is close to the Savages. I like the looks of the rifle in the magazine ads.

I have a bare bones Savage Mk. II in .22lr that is a squirrel slayer - very cheap looking but functional and accurate. Merg

The Stevens is basically the Savage barreled action without the Accu-trigger. I've shot a couple of them and found you could easily count on MOA or better, even with factory loads.

As to your mentioned purposes, feral hogs are pretty tough, and while plenty of them have been taken with .22 centerfires, there are simply much better calibers suited to the task.

Stevens also has a .308, which might be better suited to feral hogs.

A 22-250 with the right bullet would be ok, but might not have the one shot kill that a larger caliber would.

I picked one up last week from a store I supply with Uncle Bud's shooting bags and after cleaning thorougly and mounting a Bushnell Elite 3200 3x9 on it took it to the range(caliber is 25-06). Shooting and cleaning for barrel break in using Remington 100 grain factorys, the 3rd, 4th and 5th shots produced a .707" group! Repeated it(the cleaning deal!!) the next day and produced another .7" group! The patches "felt good" going thru the bore and the copper was "nil" after the 4th, 3 shot string so I chucked some 75 grain VMAXS loaded ahead of 50 grains of VARGET into it and proceeded to shoot the first two "cutting one another" and the third went 3/4" right......but those 3 were pretty fast shooting!!! Hopefully tomorrow will allow for chronographing the velocities from the 22" barrel compared to the 24" and 26" barrels I'm used too in the 25-06 chambering and the finishing of the barrel break-in deal! I did adjust the trigger down to 54 oz SAFELY and hopefully I'll get some decent range results! The stock is a piece of "tupperware" but it is floated and pillar bedded. $259.00-299.00 depending on the store........and it will shoot so far!! One of these in a .223, 22-250, .243, .25-06, .270, .308, .30-06 could fit anyones bill for a truck/tractor gun.........and just may fit for a hunting rifle!!! I will kill a few whitetails with this one this fall for "bullet testing" research! Anybody want to chime in with their bullet testing recommendation? First off on my testing will be the SIERRA 117 grain SPBT........30 years of shooting them out of .257's and 25-06's......a better whitetail bullet costing $15.00/100 is not out there!!! I'll probaly shoot a few with the 100 grain Nosler BT, 115 Nosler BT's the 120 Horn HP also! Just for "bullet performance data"!! Just for S&G, I may even shoot a few with the 75 and 87 grain VMAXS! The Sierra 90 grain HPBT should also be included!! First impressions of the rifle are that it will work as intended! GHD PS: And merganser, you could hav paid upwards of $500.00 for a 504 Remington 22 and it would have not been any more deadly n the bushytails than your Savage 22!!

Thanks guys, I have looked around for one in South Ark and North Louisiana and no one has any in stock yet. Sounds like a good "working gun" to me, which is what I am looking for. I also have a Bushnell Elite 3x9; excellent scope for the money IMO. Merg

I bought a 7/08 from a dlr, Buds, in Paris Ky, $262 plus tax. We were trying it out yesterday and got hints of great accuracy then would get a page size group, then the rear lens fell out of the scope! I'll have to start over.

It's an "old" Savage without the accutrigger as was said above. I think mine will be a good shooter the scope just gave me a curb bite. IT does have a much lighter barrel than I'm used to but dry firing implies every bit as good a trigger as others have written.

I'd get a little heavier caliber for hogs just because of the heavier hides and raking shots you may take. I like the 7-08 as you can shoot 154 on up to the 170gr plus bullets. .308 is also an excellant choice. THe long action and calibers such as the 270 and 3006 are also sold if your interested.

Wouldn't hurt to look at Walmart as they are selling the heck out of them at very good prices. If you order from Walmart (or anywhere else) don't forget your bases, that's my stunt!

I was hunting hogs in southern Ky and listened to the homeboys telling this Northerner from Minnesota how to hunt hogs, where they were (always a long ways from where we stood, funny how that works) and wild stories. One of them said he was squirrel hunting and surprised a bunch of them. He got treed on a stump watching a whole tribe of them jump up at him and chuff. He said he shot hogs until he ran out of ammo. I kept the stories going with a lot of REEally? at he right moments. Wound up everyone wanted to hunt with me. They got us out of our tents, had us sleeping in their clubhouse (no women allowed!) and cooked up a rabbit and fish fry. I think all the talk of hating Northerners is crap piled up by people that no one likes no matter where they are.

I dinked around with the Stevens 200 a bit more this PM!......this one in 25-06 is a serious beast! Yes it likes the factory 100 grain Remington stuff to the tune of .7 for 3 shots at 100. But I am not going to post a pic of what it does with 75 grain VMAXS and 50 grains of VARGET!!! And that was loads loaded for a No.1 Ruger! No measuring of the throat to get a seating depth for 15/1000's off the lands!! Did it repeat it????No not quite! But I'll live with .457"(the .457" was the BIG GROUP!!!!) from a pencil barrel, tupperware stock, less than $300.00 rifle to ride a truck or tractor!! I just may have to go pick up one of these little numbers in .223 and also 22-250 and maybe a .243!!! It isn't "purty"! It isn't "top of the line"! BUT IT SHOOTS AND FUNCTIONS!!! I am impressed!! And this is from someone who has been "beside the lathe" and "done the threading"!! (Down to the 1/2 of 1/10,000)!!!! Remington and the rest of the big hitters have their work cut out for them!! I AM IMPRESSED!!!! Wonder if the next one will do this good!!??? If not, I'll bet it will be on par with rifles from the biggies costing twice as much!!! Wonder what it will do with something besides a 3x9 Bushnell Elite 3200 on it? About Wednesday of this week, it may see a 4.4-14 Nikn on it! That would probably be a real calling rifle!(25-06) Enough power for whatever you may call in! Enough glass to see it clearly!! And no noticable recoil to speak of!! Did I mention I like the 25-06??? GHD

Nevr tested it at 200 or 300 yards but this PM it happened to be in the truck when I observed a groundhog who had decided to move in on an old den in a hayfield! He was 211 yards away(really 17HMR stuff but the 25-06, Stevens 200 was handy) so I just put the crosshairs on the top of his head and "sqeezed easy"!(what I tell my daughter to do when shooting big deer!!) Head exploded with a 75 grain VMAX!! This is a serious truck and tractor gun!! Probably a serious "calling " rifle! Probably a serious "mountain" rifle for here in VA!! Never got to chronograph the little short barrel yet....maybe tomorrow!! GHD

GD what do you do to adjust the trigger on one of those

The trigger is the old pre accu trigger Savage.

There is an adjustment screw, but be very careful. Loosen it to far and you will get slam fires. My old 110 in .308 was able to be adjusted to around 4 lbs. Not to bad.

cc an nejack, the Stevens trigger has slots in the adjustment screw(1/4 turn per slot) and yu can adjust it down and test it as you go! Too far and the slam-fires will happen!! DO NOT FILE OR SAND THE FACES OR THE SEAR OR SEAR ENGAGEMENT METAL!!! They are coated! ......the outside is hard but the inside is SOFT!! If you file the hard outside off, then you may get inordinate wearing of the soft inside metal and get a PRETTY DARN USELESS TRIGGER MECHANISM!!! Using the screw can get you down to the 3.5-4 lb range and that's really pretty decent for a hunting rifle!! On my varminters and target rifles, that would be totally unacceptable!! But on a whitetail rifle, to be used in the woods, on the mountain, from the tractor, it will suffice! GHD

I've just come back from a tour of several of the local guncounters, looking at Stevens 200's. I am impressed! Hell, they even say Savage right on the barrel ...

Prices ranged from $279 to $325 but some may have had a crappy scope included.

I still don't understand why the 22-250 has a 1-12" twist while the 223 is 1-9". Wouldn't it be easier for Stevens and more useful to the consumer to have both be 1-9" ?

Either way, when this Stevens gets to be well known it may set the market on its ear.

Redial

OK, somebody 'splain this to me - I just fondled another 200 ($259!),this one in 22-250 but it was built on the LONG action! WTF?

Is this an aberration or are they randomly putting short chamberings on long actions? Personally, I think it's great since I prefer the flexibility of the long action over the restrictions of the short one.

Anybody know?

Redial

Redial,
I bet that the 22-250 you saw on a long action was built with spare parts from the pre Accu Trigger Savages. My .308 is built on the 110 action, even though today I think you can get one on a short action. That is just the way Savage used to do things.

Still, not a bad deal. You can rebarrel the Stevens to a larger game rifle easier with the long action.

does anyone know how much that 25-06 by stevens weighs?? thanks, chaz

chaz, I'm out of town on business till Friday or Saturday but i'll weigh it unless somebody chimes in with a weight. It is light in 25-06....I picked one up at a shop(new 25-06 just to feel that "factory trigger") on Saturday with no scope or mounts and I'm betting it's going to be somewhere in the 6.5-6.875 lb weight range. it's not heavy and with the 22" barrel is handy! Charlie (GHD)

I think the web site says 6.5#'s it too bad they dont' make these in some odd ball calibers like 260 rem, 204 or 6mm

cc, ???.260, .6mm, .204......odd-ball??????? I shoot em' all and if one had been available in .260 i'd probably own on of those "little cheapies" in that chambering also!! But at least they did do it up in "GOD'S chosen caliber......25-06!!" GHD