One of the many reasons I love the early history of shotguns is how creative companies were forced to be. The idea of a pump-action weapon wasn’t protected by a patent. Winchester went to court to prove that against claims made by the rights owner of the Spencer shotgun. However, lots of different aspects of shotguns were patented. This meant you had to be creative, and the Stevens Model 520 was nothing if not creative.
The Origins of the 520
If you’re not a fan of deep diving into near autistic levels of patent history and uninformed speculation, you can skip this section.
John Moses Browning (PBUH) had a hand in designing the 520. The man owned a lot of patents at the time, so he was working around the patents he had licensed to companies like Winchester. I often joke that Winchester was actually a patent office that just so happened to make guns.
Browning had designed the M1893/1897 series of shotguns, which were responsible for pump action shotguns becoming very popular. John Browning filed the first patent that would become the 520 on July 10th 1903. That’s important because in August of 1903, Winchester sent out the infamous sour grapes memo announcing downplaying Browning’s departure from Winchester.
The letter proclaimed that Winchester had previously purchased every patent Browning produced, even if they never intended to produce it. Yet Winchester hadn’t purchased that patent.
It seems unlikely that Browning would have designed a competitor to Winchester’s pump gun if he wasn’t already on his way out. That’s pure speculation, but I find the timing interesting. J. Stevens Arms & Tool Company would purchase the patent rights for the design in 1907.
I was browsing Browning patents (say that five times fast) and came across one from 1897 for a loading tray on a shotgun. In the images provided, we see the distinct receiver shape of the 520, so this idea was apparently bouncing around since at least 1897.
520 Patents and Features
I’m no patent attorney. Hell, I don’t even watch legal shows beyond Night Court (not the remake). However, the 1903 patent covers two features that would seem to separate the gun from the Winchester 1897.
The first would be the breech block that locks into the top of the receiver and is visible through the receiver. When you move the action back and forth, you can see the breech block drop and rise, locking into the top of the receiver. This design seems quirky, but it allowed the second patent — a vertical takedown system — to be possible.
The 520 would be a takedown gun, but they couldn’t just use the same takedown design as the 1897. The barrel and magazine slide upward vertically into the receiver and are released and tightened by twisting the magazine tube.
The gun has the same inertia lock as the 1897. With most shotguns, you can manually pump the shotgun when the hammer is down without having to defeat a lock. That’s not the case here. If you pull the trigger and the gun doesn’t fire, you can’t manipulate the pump freely. The inertia lock was a safety device.
If you pulled the trigger and the gun didn’t fire, the inertia lock kept the breech locked in case of a hang fire. The user would have to manually release the action. If you pulled the trigger and the gun fired, the inertia lock was defeated and you could freely pump the action. The force from a fired shell drives the inertia lock rearward to unlock the action.
A second patent filed in 1907 concerning the slide arm and forend would be the final piece to make the 520 a reality.
The Rest of The 520
The 520 is a fairly standard pump shotgun outside of those features. It’s got a five-round tubular magazine, a wooden pump forend, and a wood stock. The gun loads through the bottom and ejects out the side of the gun. It’s labeled as hammerless, meaning the hammer is concealed inside the receiver.
The side of the gun has the pump release we mentioned before. It’s rather large, round, and easy to manipulate. However, doing so in a firing grip isn’t possible for me. The safety sits inside the trigger guard, and it’s easy to see why such a design fell out of favor.
Like most shotguns of that era, it can be slam-fired. It’s silly, but people like bump firing semi-autos, so there’s a (small) market for slam firing enthusiasts.
The most distinct, eye-catching feature of the Stevens 520 is its double humpbacked receiver. I call this thing John Browning’s other humpback shotgun. They were originally produced with 28- and 30-inch barrels, but whoever owned this model before I got it trimmed the barrel.
Stevens produced riot gun versions, but they’re fairly rare. They did some prototype trench guns, too, but not many. Reportedly, only one survives and was sold for about ten grand at auction in 2019.
Shooting the 520
The gun may seem a little odd, but fairly unremarkable. Then you start to shoot it.
The 520 can handle 2.75-inch shells, but it’s wise to avoid both high-velocity rounds and steel shot. Old shotguns don’t play well with these modern loads. I only shoot lightly-loaded birdshot and Fiocchi buckshot through the gun.
These are hefty guns made from forged steel, so they eat up recoil pretty well. The action is incredibly slick. The single action bar glides back and forth, ejecting cartridges smoothly and loading the next. The solid lifter still does a great job.
You can fly through multiple rounds quickly and easily. The gun just eats them up and spits them out. It’s clearly a well-machined tool. You can tell that when you look at the teeth that connect the barrel and magazine tube to the receiver. This wasn’t a simple gun to produce by any means.
With the barrel trimmed some time in the past, we’ve lost the choke, so this one is a plain cylinder bore. The patterns are fine, but that’s decided by your ammo more than anything else. If you look at the models with the original barrel, the bead sight sits fairly high, kinda like how a Remington 870 bead sits on a pedestal.
That’s not the case with my chopped barrel. The bead sits low and directly on the barrel. That makes it shoot high, so the POA and POI aren’t copacetic.
Even so, this is one of the more enjoyable retro guns out there. It’s slicker than you expect because no one seems to want these things, judging by the low price points they sell for. If you see one, and it appears to be in firing shape, I’d snatch it up. These are robust, well-made, and a joy to shoot.
A Gun Of Many Names
I have a standard 510, but there are lots of incarnations of this gun. They changed model names based on the grade of the gun. Models like the 522, 525, 530, and 535 are all mechanically 520s with varying levels of engraving, stock quality, and either a straight stock or standard stock.
Savage purchased Stevens in 1920 and made some changes. They moved the slide release button to the bottom of the gun behind the trigger, making it arguably more ergonomic.
The Model 520A ditched the double humpback design for a (probably easier, less expensive to produce) single humpback. They also moved the safety to the receiver tang, much like Mossbergs today.
The Model 620 came about in 1927, streamlining the receiver and eliminating the humpback entirely for a rounded profile. Some variants have a safety inside the trigger guard, others have a crossbolt safety behind the trigger. The 620A came out in 1940 and changed how the stock connected to the receiver.
The 520-30 was introduced during World War II and was just a 520A with a new name. They produced trench and riot guns for military use as well as long-barreled guns for training. The Model 620A also served alongside the 520-30 in the same configurations. These guns would remain in action during Korea and into the early days of Vietnam.
Those were just the Stevens-marked guns. The 520 was also a popular gun for department stores. They made various 520/620 shotguns under various names like the Ranger Model 30, the Western Field Model 30, the Riverside Arms Model 520, and the J.C.Higgins 102.25. They were solid guns, but as I said, no one wants them, so they can be had for a little more than the price of a Heritage Rough Rider.
The End of the 520
While it was produced for decades, these guns were never really a major success. Stevens lacked the brand recognition of Winchester, and these guns were expensive and complicated to manufacture. In 1911, the 520 cost the same as an 1897. To me, the 520 is the better gun, but Winchester was an American icon.
Competing with the big dog on the block was tough. If you couldn’t offer something different and significantly better or significantly cheaper, you had a tough time succeeding. Good engineering doesn’t always beat iconic branding. Still, if you find one, pick it up. You’ll thank me.
I had one of these shotguns long ago. I didn’t much like it as it was very heavy and the long barrel made it cumbersome when I went rabbit hunting with it. However, as it was my grandfathers shotgun, it had a lot of sentimental value. Unfortunately, it was stolen, so to this day, 40 years later, whenever I go to a gun show, I’m always on the lookout for my old gun. My particular gun had a distinctive chip in the stock and would be readily identifiable, but by now I’ve mostly given up on that dream.