ID a gun
Reader Mike emails: Any chance the folks from your circle could ID these two arms from the mid-1900’s. One seems to be (obvious (oblivious?)) to me a pump shotgun (but with an exposed hammer?). The other, well, is more nebulous. And frankly the picture is not of the greatest quality. It is supposed to be upstate New York around Rome/Utica.
Here’s the pic:
October 22nd, 2012 at 8:53 am
The pump shotgun looks like a Winchester model 12 to my non-expert eyes.
October 22nd, 2012 at 8:55 am
The pump looks like a Winchester 1897 to me. The other is a muzzleloader. Maybe a shotgun because of the context of the photo, looks like a couple guys bird hunting, and the apparent lack of sights, but I can’t even be sure of that.
October 22nd, 2012 at 9:00 am
The shotgun looks like a Winchester 1897 takedown. I have one from that era.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winchester_Model_1897
My takedown model has a different end on the magazine tube for that lock there, so that would make this the solid-frame version.
October 22nd, 2012 at 9:00 am
The shotgun looks like a Winchester 1897. I have one from that era.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winchester_Model_1897
My takedown model has a different end on the magazine tube for that lock there, so that would make this the solid-frame version.
October 22nd, 2012 at 9:08 am
Pump looks like a Winchester.
The black shotgun looks like an LC Smith.
October 22nd, 2012 at 9:13 am
The single looks like a real shoulder buster. 8 gauge, ‘mebbe?
October 22nd, 2012 at 9:28 am
I would call the muzzleloader a Tennessee squirel rifle. Because of the Plain Jane appearance. Although the caliber would be .36 or bigger — more than needed for squirrels.
October 22nd, 2012 at 9:32 am
P.S. You can’t tell the caliber just from the overall thickness of the barrel.
October 22nd, 2012 at 9:54 am
Aging eyes prevent a good look, but I think you may be right,NK. KY/TN rifle. The style of the stock is the key. Still, it could be a shotgun of painful per-portion.
October 22nd, 2012 at 10:08 am
Its hard to judge the barrel thickness properly, because Im seeing this on an android phone, but the barrel doesnt appear that much heavier than the 1897’s. Coupled with the lack of sights, and I’ll side with the front stuffer shotgun crowd. It appears to be some form of sidelock, but I cant tell for sure. The cheekpiece throws me a bit, but a muzzleloader sidelock shotgun could have made by just about anybody, and it takes a much more experienced eye than mine to discern the style of stock and positively id the gun.
October 22nd, 2012 at 10:14 am
Jerry,
You could be right. Back then for people going out to the prairie, a smoothbore in a large caliber that could take either shot or ball, admittedly at a shorter range, would be more useful than a rifle. And cheaper because the gunsmith would not need to rifle the barrel.
October 22nd, 2012 at 10:15 am
Wolfman, it’s a percussion muzzleloader for sure.
October 22nd, 2012 at 10:17 am
Whether it was originally flint? They were still handcrafting them in the percussion era, so it may have been made percussion at birth.
October 22nd, 2012 at 10:36 am
Not it, but in the same style:
http://www.gunbroker.com/Auction/ViewItem.aspx?Item=311775533#PIC
October 22nd, 2012 at 11:36 am
My Uncle lived in Rome, New York for 50 years! As a result, I am qualified to state with certainty that he does not appear in that photo.
October 22nd, 2012 at 12:03 pm
zoomed in as much as could without losing too much detail, the ramrod tip appears to be about 10 or 8 ga. or a .75 cal or an .80 cal musket. And I’m not sure on the shotgun, but that doesn’t look like an external hammer to me and what looks like an ejection port might be the wat it is lining up with his trousers. My first thought was a Remington model 10 bottom ejector. And while the 1897 does have an external hammer it’s ejection port also comes further down the receiver, and I’m not even sure that is an ejection port on the one in the photo.
October 22nd, 2012 at 3:52 pm
The pump action is, without a doubt, a Winchester 1897 shotgun.
October 22nd, 2012 at 5:05 pm
Can’t tell. Neither one has rails.
October 22nd, 2012 at 5:10 pm
The weapon on the right is a muzzleloading percussion shotgun.
The jag on the end of the ram rod looks to be either 16 or 12 gauge.
October 22nd, 2012 at 5:48 pm
Thanks all for the insights!
October 22nd, 2012 at 6:05 pm
Yup, black powder shotgun with the ramrod, can’t ID the maker, maybe the stock would give a hint when I get to my encyclopaedia of American arms. I think the Winchester has been clearly IDd
October 22nd, 2012 at 10:03 pm
I’ll concur with those who have listed the “exposed hammer” gun as an 1897. It looks very familiar to me. My father has an 1897 and still shoots it to this day. The other is black powder. Ramrod is a dead giveaway.
October 23rd, 2012 at 1:17 am
I’m having a hard time looking at the gun. I’m having more of an issue with the fact that apparently appropriate hunting attire at the time was a bow tie with a vest and jacket, complete with a gentleman’s hat.
If any of the candidates today dressed up like that to appear a hunter, we’d say that dog in the picture just don’t hunt. But hunting then was a “gentleman’s” pursuit, though I’d wager the man to the left in the picture was a “gentleman”, and the man in the right was a servant or aspirant.
We ought to be happy America had enough of a frontier never to be thoroughly poisoned by this line of thinking. If you want to know where the Northeast went wrong, look no farther than this picture.
October 23rd, 2012 at 10:52 am
@Sebastian,
gotta agree. Hunting could be a gentleman’s sport.
Notice the dog: that looks like a beagle to my eyes. Definitely a dog to help a gentleman hunt game birds or rabbits.
I might guess that the guy on the right is some sort of helper, but I note that he isn’t playing the role of dog-handler. Maybe he’s a local guide, or a less-wealthy relative?
Re: the guns. My first thought was that the slide-and-receiver on the pump shotgun reminds me of my Ithaca Model 37, but I think that 1937 is too recent for this snapshot. I agree that the external-hammer thing makes it look like the Winchester 1897.
Ithaca did copy Winchester’s later design (from 1912) when they made the M37. All three used similar slide mechanisms, so that might explain the similarity.
October 23rd, 2012 at 2:40 pm
Not sure about the muzzle loader, but the pic could definitely pass as a near turn of the 20th century American political photo-op.
Both fellows must’ve been efficient hunters; neither one looks like they’ve missed a meal…the same can said of the dog, too…
October 23rd, 2012 at 3:24 pm
I’d say that the pump shotgun is a 1893 Winchester. The model ’97 was a improvement over the ’93. The ’93 ejected the caseing from the top while the ’97 is from the side. One of the prominent features of the ’97 is the large ejector port in the right side of the reciever, which is not visable in the photo. The ’93 did not have that.
The other shotgun is obviously a muzzle loader of some type, the ramrod is visable. BTW, contrary to popular myth, muzzleloaders were in wide use into the 1920s.
Judgeing by the clothes those guys are wearing I figure that the photo was taken circa 1900, give or take a few years.
October 23rd, 2012 at 6:13 pm
I’m with Huck (3:24) as to the date the photo was taken.
The clothing worn by the fellow on the left looks no more recent than about 1920. More probably it dates to the first decade of the 1900s. His shirt for example appears to have a separate collar, which disappeared from mens’ wear after WW 1.
October 23rd, 2012 at 7:35 pm
The halfstock muzzleloader stock looks very much like the late Hawken rifle I’m building– single barrel key (though I have similar stocks with two keys) single lock screw escutcheon, and a beavertail cheek (for a right handed shooter). I agree that it’s most likely a smoothbore. That style halfstock was fairly common from roughly the mid 1800s on, and is standard fare for a “plains rifle” of the westward migration among other things. And with that I have risen to my level of incompetence. More likely a percussion lock because the vast majority of flinters had two lock screws and a plate on the off side and because the chances at that later time are that it is percussion.
An exposed hammer pump shotgun didn’t seem like anything unusual to me.
October 24th, 2012 at 12:47 am
I stand coreected. I did a blow up of the pic on my comp, why It didnt occur to me to do so earlier, and I could see the ejector port. So the shotgun’s a Model 1897 Winchester.
October 24th, 2012 at 1:04 am
Looking at the pic I couldn’t clearly see the ejection port.
Looking at it in a mirror though, that guy could be holding an ’97 in his RIGHT hand and what we’re seeing is the port side.
(like the old Billy the Kid “lefty” photo)