Well alright!
That's a good 'un! Has a measure of blue finish remaining and the wear patterns and patina on the metal surfaces are soft and give a pleasing appearance. The walnut surfaces are still attractive. I'd be proud to have that one in my collection. A grand ol' John Browning design, way over-built for heavy service through several generations of gunners. Worth a pretty penny on the collector's market, it could command a low 4-figure sum!
A quick tale on the Model 97 shown with the mallard above. I spent some years as a shooting coach with 4-H youth. Was rewarding and fun back then with all the parental involvement and participation. Anyway, one Saturday morning we took the kids skeet shooting at Alpine Shooting Range in South Fort Worth, Texas. A good time was had by all and some good instruction was had. After the kids had mostly dispersed the other coach and I along with a few remaining parents indulged ourselves in some skeet and trap shooting.
I had the Winchester 97 along, just for fun. Didn't really expect to get it out of its case however, since it was a Black Diamond trap gun, I decided to shoot a round or two of trap with it. Seems like I ended up with 17 out of 25 as a best effort with it that day. We then took over one of the skeet ranges for the rest of the time we were there. I put up the 97 and shot my ol' favorite Winchester Model 12 at that time which had a ugly Poly-Choke fitted but could really hit when opened up to cylinder bore. The other shooting coach, with whom I also worked with, wanted to give the 97 a try at skeet and I said: "Have at it. The gun's full choke but it ought to really smoke 'em if you're on."
He proceeded to shoot it on a few stations. Then he came over to me saying a shell was stuck in it. Also he was complaining how the gun kicked hard and made the knuckle of his thumb bark his nose. Don't know recall if his nose was bleeding or just a bit swollen and red. I took the 97 and peered into the ejection port to see a green Remington Express shell stuck in the opened action. No amount of effort could induce it to come out which was initially puzzling to me. Nothing to do but to take my pocket knife and cut the plastic shell in order to remove it. Upon removing the shell all was revealed. He'd reached in a game vest and loaded up my 1914 Winchester Model 97 with a 3-inch magnum Remington Express duck load! While the loaded 3-inch shell fed and chambered, the fired shell was too long to admit through the ejection port. So had to be cut out. Considering the heavier payload of the 3-inch magnum along with the extra resistance the crimp encountered trying to open up in the shorter 2 3/4-inch chamber, the pressures must have been something else.
The ancient gun held it though with no obvious ill effects. My co-worker was lucky in this instance. I have a reference book around here somewhere that discusses Winchester's proof methods in the pre-World War I era. It says that each and every Winchester Model 97 and Model 12 was proof tested with shells generating a 40% overload.
Classic Winchester products were, and are very good. I really like using 'em and am not too interested in making much use of current brands and models.
