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<  16ga. Guns  ~  Model 12 -vs- Ithaca 37
Hammer bill
PostPosted: Sun Apr 02, 2023 4:40 pm  Reply with quote



Joined: 09 Feb 2015
Posts: 815

As reading all the responses on the 37 or model 12 of which I've hunted with one 60 years I've been hunting ill say this. Either one in 16ga will do what ab12ga will do and must say neither will tire you in the field like a gclub12 ga will do. I have both but seem to always grab the 16 mod 12 on the way out the door for a hunt. Will shoot the 37 once in a wile on skeet or sports. Balance on the mod12 is superior. Smoothness is superior. But one thing that leaves me baffled about the responses I've seen in this thread. And this thought comes back to the early days of the fifties when may dad was teaching me about hunting and gun handling. One of his favorite sayings was about safety. He said just remember when that bullet or shot leaves the barrel accident or on purpose you can't call it back. He pounded that in my head to become familiar with any gun you pic up. You never know if someday you don't have a choice what your firearms you grab in a life saving situation. He was a 4 year WWII vet wounded twice. So when I grab a gun the first thing I look for is the safety. I pick the gun up. Feel how it feels around the wrist of the stock with my finger on the safety. Click it on and off sever times with the barrel pointed straight up. I immediately am familiar with it . In all my years of hunting I never had a problem with any safety position during a hunt. Always became second nature. Regardless of single shot, pump, auto, double, single trigger or double. Never a second thought of using double trigger either. Any gun safety became second nature within minutes. That is why when I hear safety issues it really disturbing to me. I know of one fellow who is a good friend that has the safteys taken off or disengaged. I won't hunt with him. I will shoot trap with him and he can't load the shell until it's his turn to shoot. I didn't find out about his problem with safties till about 7-8 years ago. I'm baffled by the complexity of the issue. Bill[[/img]
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kennedy756
PostPosted: Mon Apr 03, 2023 12:23 pm  Reply with quote



Joined: 30 Sep 2015
Posts: 637
Location: NEW SALISBURY INDIANA

I had both, sold the 12, the 37 fit me like a glove, the 12 did not.

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16ga 3-Win 37
16ga Ithaca 37 1946
16ga Western Auto Revelation
16ga Browning A-5 1929
16ga Marlin 90 1939
16ga browning citori lightning grade 3 2003
16ga Francisque Darne 1920
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Cheesy
PostPosted: Mon Apr 03, 2023 2:44 pm  Reply with quote



Joined: 28 Oct 2015
Posts: 164
Location: SWMO

I’ve got my grandpas Model 12 from the 50s in a 12 guage and two early 50s 37s in 16 and 20. Maybe not a fair comparison? But I’ll take either 37 over the 12. They just feel better in the hand to me. Nice and trim. Point where I look.

Maybe I need to buy a Model 12 in 16 for scientific research? (Think the wife will believe that?)


Last edited by Cheesy on Tue Apr 04, 2023 7:03 am; edited 1 time in total
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WyoChukar
PostPosted: Mon Apr 03, 2023 8:01 pm  Reply with quote



Joined: 16 Jul 2015
Posts: 2124
Location: Hudson,Wy

drcook,

The Model 12 is a great gun, but I recently sold mine due to a hand issue. The safety location at the front of the trigger guard makes my hand and wrist cramp quickly when I carry a mod 12 at port arms with my finger "on the button". It's mostly a problem for me when I hunt upland game. I like M12's but don't suffer the same problem with a Rem 870, so the 12 had to go to a new home rather than gather dust.

I'll admit that my problem comes mostly from chronic fatigue or carpel tunnel since I have spent a lot of years doing custom metal work, often running an angle grinder with a 6"-7" disc one handed. I don't have the same trouble when I carry my Rem 870.

I'm not sure what sort of wrist trouble you have, but I recommend trying a Model 12 before committing.

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drcook
PostPosted: Tue Apr 04, 2023 6:00 am  Reply with quote



Joined: 09 Dec 2012
Posts: 689

Quote:
I'm not sure what sort of wrist trouble you have, but I recommend trying a Model 12 before committing.


Your post actually has been the best so far. The safety at the front would most likely be extremely problematic. 14 or 16 surgeries, I have lost count. A procedure where they remove one row of the wrist bones, its call a proximal row carpectomy.

I have been able to work through most of my handicap since age 17 and done more than most people with 2 good hands, but there are certain things that are just impossible to work around.

One is an "English" stock. I don't have the movement to grasp a straight stock.

I never thought about the safety causing hand cramps, which it would.

I am grateful to you for bringing this to my attention.

I am going today to pick up a Ith 37 (16ga of course) that I had an Imp-Cyl barrel fitted to. I will post up the results. I am still not at liberty to disclose who did the work, he is taking the summer off.

If I had a 16ga chamber reamer, I can fit Ithaca 37 barrels. They are not hard to do, you just have to understand the process. My friend the gunsmith has a chamber reamer.

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dr = David R, not Dr. but thanks for the compliment, most folks just call me Dave
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stevesavage
PostPosted: Tue Apr 04, 2023 6:22 am  Reply with quote



Joined: 13 Apr 2017
Posts: 150

Surprised nobody has committed on the Ithaca’s bottom ejection. I wish my Browning A-5 ejected to the bottom. Fired cases would be much easier to find.
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drcook
PostPosted: Tue Apr 04, 2023 8:23 am  Reply with quote



Joined: 09 Dec 2012
Posts: 689

stevesavage wrote:
Surprised nobody has committed on the Ithaca’s bottom ejection. I wish my Browning A-5 ejected to the bottom. Fired cases would be much easier to find.


True, but the bottom ejection can cause issues if all the parts are not adjusted properly.

Somewhere along the line Ithaca, then Ithaca here in Ohio lost sight of the original design of the magazine tube. It went from a tube with a pressed in bushing at the end (which stopped the follower from following the last shell) to the roll crimped design.

That roll crimp design was a big reason for Ithacas dropping their shells. The pressed in bushing more precisely handed the shell off to the shell stops. The increased diameter, along with crashing into the internal shoulder that was left there, made the hand off not so precise.

I talked to the folks at Ithaca here in Ohio about what they did when fitting a new magazine tube and they told me that they reamed that shoulder out. They just didn't understand the design. That is one reason the Ohio built guns had a bad reputation for not feeding or dumping shells.

When I fitted a tube for a receiver that needed it, I actually machined an insert to take the place of the pressed in bushing (I think I documented it here, maybe, I know I did on Shotgun World).

I have since acquired 2 old style magazine tubes from parts guns and am going to polish and have them blued and fit them to my wife's 16ga Ithaca 37.

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dr = David R, not Dr. but thanks for the compliment, most folks just call me Dave
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stevesavage
PostPosted: Tue Apr 04, 2023 12:52 pm  Reply with quote



Joined: 13 Apr 2017
Posts: 150

Thanks for the info. My older Ithaca’s work fine. I really like the bottom ejection. Would if I had problems.
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stevesavage
PostPosted: Tue Apr 04, 2023 12:59 pm  Reply with quote



Joined: 13 Apr 2017
Posts: 150

Thanks for the info. My older Ithaca’s work fine. I really like the bottom ejection. Would not if I had problems.
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16'er
PostPosted: Wed Apr 05, 2023 5:20 am  Reply with quote
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Joined: 08 Oct 2006
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Location: Tappahannock, Virginia

I've owned a Win model 12, Rem model 31 (both steel and alloy receiver), and Ithaca model 37R. The only one I've kept is the M37.

YMMV.
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Two Pipe Shoot
PostPosted: Mon Apr 10, 2023 1:30 pm  Reply with quote
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Location: Wisconsin

I own several models of each in different gauges, so I know a good deal about both, but you answered your question as you posed it. You know you like the 37, stick with it or enhance its function or appeal. That’s what I tell my students.

For me the choice is the model 12. I grew up with a 12 GA with a 14” LOP, and just last week found 3 20’s and swapped buttstocks I order to have 14” on the gun I chose. Like you, I like it better because it fits me for an instinctive mount and swing. Reno

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fourtown
PostPosted: Tue Apr 11, 2023 3:45 pm  Reply with quote



Joined: 25 Jan 2014
Posts: 223
Location: MN

Like DannyPratt, I prefer the Remington 31's. Steel receiver for ducks, alloy for carrying for pheasants, grouse and woodcock, and yes it has a crack in it.

But I shot an 870 in my formative years, and am a little partial to the Remington pumps.

Great discussion.
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drcook
PostPosted: Tue Apr 11, 2023 4:27 pm  Reply with quote



Joined: 09 Dec 2012
Posts: 689

We were at the Cabelas in Avon, Ohio tonight. They have a 16ga Model 12 in their gun library. The stock is totally wrong for me due to the injury to my hand.

So now I know.

They think the receiver has been reblued. Overall the gun is in really nice shape and if I remember correctly, is priced a little over 6. If any of you are close to there and interested. Sorry once I figured out that it wouldn't work, I didn't ask what the choke was.

Additionally, they were all wanting to give treats to my Basset Hound puppy.

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dr = David R, not Dr. but thanks for the compliment, most folks just call me Dave
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BarkeyVA
PostPosted: Sun Apr 16, 2023 9:15 pm  Reply with quote
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Location: Williamsburg, VA

I grew up shooting my dad's 20 ga. Model 37. I have owned several 37's in 12 and 16 ga, and my only pump gun now is a 16 ga. 37. I have never owned a Model 12 because, for whatever reason, I just don't like the way they feel when mounting them.

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Gil S
PostPosted: Mon Apr 17, 2023 4:11 am  Reply with quote
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Location: Lowcountry Ga.

Let me put it this way: If the ancient Greeks had shotguns, the Athenians would have loved the classic lines of the M12. the Spartans would have preferred the simplicity of the M37 which they'd have used to shoot the Athenians and taken away their M12s as loot. Rube Goldberg would have preferred the M12 due to its complexity. Dave, you already know where I stand on the M37. In my lifetime, I've had two M12s but a dozen or so M37s. Two of my former duck hunting buddies loved the M37. To make them slicker actioned, while watching TV with the family, they continually shucked the guns to the point were the weight of the slide would bring the slide to the bottom of the action when the barrel was held upwards and the slide released. There are no stamped metal parts in the M37 that I know of and I've been through a lot of them. As far as being "loose" I'd argue with that description--due to the simplicity of design it only takes one action bar to smoothly operate the slide, not two as the 870 which btw is the finest engineered and designed pump ever made despite stamped parts. Gil
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