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Joined: 17 Jan 2014 Posts: 1377 Location: Denver, Colorado

Have two long-lost firearms back in the fold here (guns I'd stashed back in the "old country" to simplify travel & hunting back there). They date back to my pump-gun research days and while I thought them nice then, I'd forgotten how good they feel to fondle and mount.

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The real surprise of the pair is the M12 in 20. Most (if not all) of my many other M12s dated from the 1920s and they fit me very differently (actually, not all that well). I can make them work but...perfection was always elusive. This circa 1953 gun doesn't tickle my eye as much as the earlier guns but...it sure does fit and feel good to me. Post 1930s, so it's modern (no shell-length issues) and a bit ungainly looking to me (that flat-bottomed forend doesn't look quite right) but when I throw it up, it's right there. Clearly a longer LOP and some different geometry at work here (which I hadn't remembered, but it's been a long time since I last held it). A full-choked 28-inch gun so probably not ideal for my primary uses for such a gun but still....the typical Winchester build quality (almost-indestructible steels, good finishes, good wood) and in a very useful package. Contemplating some special pump-gun hunts this Fall with friends and family now. A chance to rest my double(s) for a day or two and go native, eh?

Great to return to past treasures

Lloyd3,

Nice old pump guns, enjoy using them.

all the best,

Pine Creek/Dave
L.C. Smith Man

Member Joined: 30 Nov 2011 Posts: 1696 Location: Minnesota

I have the same problem with M12's- have shouldered gobs of them and they just dont fit like a Ithaca but have always admired their quality. Is the Ithaca in the picture the one you're trying to sell?

Joined: 17 Jan 2014 Posts: 1377 Location: Denver, Colorado

It is. As mentioned, this M12 is different somehow. I was just going to peddle it but now I'm not so sure. I'll likely hunt with several of my pumps this Fall and see then what I want to do. Thankfully, not in any hurry.

Lloyd3 -- I have a 20 gauge Model 12 just like the one you pictured except it is a 60's field grade gun with the stock they used in the end -- slightly extended sorta-semi-beavertail forend that is not flat-bottomed, a tad bigger around, still with the tootsie roll groves. My dad bought it in a hardware store (Coast to Coast?) in a small Montana town on US Hwy 2 on the way back home to North Dakota after we had spent Thanksgiving weekend with my uncle and aunt and cousins in Chester Montana. It was a discounted item, new-in-the-box. The new Model 1200's were out and the Model 12 was "obsolete" -- '64 was the end of the line (ha, ha!), so he got it for $65 -- still a chunk of change then, but I think that was $20 or $30 off list price. The joke was on them, as it turned out, in my opinion even then.

Dad bought it secretly somehow, and gave it to me as my big Christmas gift in 1964. I was 13 years old. It was the first gun that was really mine. I still have it and it is in great shape. There is hardly anything at which I have shot it that I haven't brought down -- upland birds, waterfowl, doves, blackbirds, rabbits, etc. It still works great for me, even though it seems like it shouldn't be a great fit. It has never been modified, but with my present "dimensions" is should be too short in LOP, and have too much drop. Go figure. I guess my performance with standard-stocked field grade Model 12's in 16 and 20 from about 1928 on up must be due to some kind of muscle memory. No, just like you, Lloyd3, I don't much cotton to the earliest Model 12 field grade stock dimensions and shapes.

Thanks for the memories.

Cheers!

P.S. -- I have never had an Ithaca 37, but I do have a nice Remington 17 (30" FC solid rib bbl!), my second one, in fact. It also makes me look like a good shot, though technically speaking, it's dimensions shouldn't be the best for me.

Joined: 17 Jan 2014 Posts: 1377 Location: Denver, Colorado

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I guess I need to read this again.