Browning Superposed The Browning Superposed. Even with this most ungainly action, Browning made a gun that pointed very well. It has the feel of the 19th-century machine that it is work the slide of a 97 (it’s nowhere near as smooth as a Model 12), and parts (including a hammer) stick out in all directions. The first pump gun for smokeless powder, John Browning’s Model 97 cut a swath through clouds of waterfowl at the end of the market-hunting era. The high price of building the complicated Model 37 keeps driving Ithaca out of business, but it apparently has a catlike number of lives. So many hunters carried the 37 in the 1950s, ’60s, and ’70s that today’s hunters remember it nostalgically as Dad’s or Granddad’s gun. I can take the 37 or leave it alone as a shotgun for wingshooting, but the Deerslayer version is one of the best slug shotguns ever. Bottom ejection made it a favorite of duck hunters and left-handers. The Ithaca 37 was essentially the Browning-designed Remington 17 built after its patent expired. Ithaca 37 A circa-1960s Ithaca 12-gauge Featherlight. When Federal Cartridge introduced the new 3 1/2-inch 12-gauge load, Mossberg continued its tradition of innovation, building the first gun for it, a 12-gauge pump with a long chamber and the first over-bored production barrel. It introduced the first production cantilever-rifled slug barrel the first completely closed muzzleloading, 209 primer-firing barrel and the first factory stock with a comb insert that could switch out for a higher one-all accessories for the 500. Mossberg made its reputation producing a good gun at a low price, people don’t give the company the credit it deserves as an innovator.
Even in the worst conditions, the humble Mossberg 500 is the Little Engine That Could of shotguns. Mossberg 500ĭon’t let the hardwood stock, plastic parts, and wooden magazine plug fool you. It had easy-to-swap tubes called “WinChokes” that screwed flush into the barrel-the first commercially successful interchangeable choke system. Way back in 1969, Winchester introduced a version of this gun that you could use for everything. I used to borrow my cousin’s 30-inch-barreled, Full-choked Model 12, which was lethal to turkeys out to 40 yards and greatly enhanced my elegance afield, even after I covered it with camo tape. Upland hunters, waterfowlers, and target shooters alike loved the Model 12 and for good reason: It pointed beautifully, was graceful to look at, and lasted forever. The Y-Series, with some stamped parts, was made from 1964 to 1980, but the pre-1964 Winchester was milled and machined to a glorious slickness. Over 2 million Model 12s rolled out of the Winchester plant between 19. Winchester Model 12 A near mint-condition 1956 Winchester Model 12 20-gauge. Winchester Model 42Ī favorite of quail hunters and skeet shooters, this scaled-down Model 12 is the gun to have if you must hunt with a. Remington’s first side-ejecting pump, the “ball-bearing” repeater was silky smooth out of the box and got better with use. It has gone on to become the best-selling shotgun of all time. Though inexpensive, the 870 is every bit as reliable and durable as its costlier competitors. With its stamped parts and pressed checkering, the 870 sold for much less than the Winchester Model 12, the Ithaca 37, and the Model 31 it replaced. It is the Gun That Works, and if it doesn’t, it disassembles to the molecular level in a few minutes, and whatever ails it can quickly be put right. If you think of a gun as nothing but a tool, then the 870 is the greatest shotgun ever made. It’s been the first gun of countless hunters, and the only gun of many others. You could buy the 311 at Sears under the J.C.
Here’s a salute to the chunky but dead-reliable 311 and the frugal people who own them.
When I write about a gun that costs more than $500, Crabby Old Guys put pencil to lined paper and give me what for: “I’ve owned the same Stevens double-barrel that cost me $78 in 1962 and it’s killed more game than you’ll ever see,” and so on. I don’t lust after many high-grade hunting guns, but the Darne is so different I would love to have one. The oddly beautiful, highly durable Darne doesn’t break open its receiver slides back.
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