Not for Sale: My Winchester Mannequin 1897 Shotgun

By Thundervoice

NOT FOR SALE: One Winchester Mannequin 1897 customary grade 12 gauge pump shotgun. Designed by John Moses Browning. Uncovered hammer with slamfire functionality. Manufactured in 1914. Barrel with matching serial quantity is 30 inches with full choke. Additional barrel is 26 inches with cylinder choke. Fired lower than 100 rounds within the final 50 years.

Winchester produced over one million shotguns of this mannequin between 1897 and 1957. Though they stop making this shotgun earlier than I used to be born, I’ve seen one on the market at nearly each gun present I’ve been to. Whereas nonetheless widespread, it is a one-of-a-kind gun. This one is mine. It has worth to me far past its roughly $500 market worth. It’s a particular gun. It’s distinctive due to the recollections and tales which might be simply as essential because the firing pin deep inside this murals.

This shotgun could possibly be value 1000’s of {dollars}, however it should keep in my household for so long as I’m alive. No “compensated confiscation” for this gun. For its worth can’t be measured. You see, I bear in mind my father saying that this was his father’s gun. I bear in mind my grandfather speaking about duck looking within the Arkansas backcountry with this gun.

Earlier than I used to be born, my grandfather had been an avid duck hunter, who I now want had taken me looking at the least as soon as through the few instances I bought to spend with him. However by the point I used to be sufficiently old to hunt, his eyes have been too unhealthy to shoot.

I bear in mind my father cleansing this gun for his father once we visited my grandparents on trip, caring for it as a result of he knew it could be his sometime. I bear in mind my father taking pictures the 1897 when he took me looking as a younger boy. Some day this Mannequin 1897 will go to my son or daughter and, I hope, a grandchild, who exists solely as a distant hope at the moment.

I might guess {dollars} to doughnuts that my grandfather had this gun in his fingers when he took my father looking. I solely want I had requested my father about that earlier than he handed away.

My father and I shared a typical occupation as site visitors engineers and there have been many issues that he taught me that made me the person that I’m at present. These classes didn’t have something to do with firearms, so throughout my last days with him, my solely ideas have been to assist him, thank him, and let him know the way nice of a father he was. Asking a couple of hundred-year-old shotgun was the furthest factor from my thoughts.

It wasn’t till a number of months after he handed that my mom requested me concerning the shotguns within the closet. She didn’t know what they have been, however once I pulled them out, I discovered the 1897 together with a few Remington Mannequin 11’s (additionally manufactured earlier than the Nice Conflict).

The recollections began flowing again. As I contemplated these weapons, I spotted that I had by no means requested my father concerning the historical past behind them. When did my grandfather purchase them? Did he purchase them new? How a lot did he pay? Did he commerce mattress work for the 1897?

It’s laborious to know at present, however my grandfather owned a mattress reconditioning firm. Imagine it or not, again within the day, when a mattress wore out, you didn’t throw it away. Individuals took their mattresses to my grandfather to have them reconditioned. That enterprise sustained my grandfather’s household by means of the Melancholy and into the early Nineteen Seventies when he retired. So many questions, so few solutions.

Shortly after I introduced the 1897 residence from my dad and mom’ residence, I used to be invited to shoot a spherical of sporting clays. What higher probability to check out the 1897? I quickly discovered that John Moses Browning designed this gun when males have been males and issues like recoil pads weren’t one thing you designed right into a shotgun.

After 50 rounds of sporting clays, my shoulder damage…and never just a bit bit. The phrase ‘sore’ is wholly insufficient to explain the sensation in my shoulder that day. Extreme, throbbing ache was a extra correct descriptor. The shoulder was blue for greater than two weeks, however I wouldn’t commerce that day for the world.

I used to be capable of take my son with me that day. There may be magic in taking pictures a firearm that you recognize was shot by your grandfather and your father whilst you have your son alongside. And although not more than two generations had been within the presence of that gun at anybody time throughout its 101 yr life, on that day, the gun offered a hyperlink between 4 generations of the boys in my household.

As I lay in my mattress that night time massaging my shoulder, I spotted this was not the primary time I had shot this gun. The primary time was once I was about ten years outdated. My father let me shoot it at a cardboard field earlier than we went squirrel looking in a Texas nationwide forest. Though I shot it from a sitting place, this firearm was an excessive amount of for a ten-year outdated.

After pulling the set off, I discovered myself on my bottom. The ol’ 1897 blew that ten-year-old boy proper over. Laid me out flat. Flat sufficient that my father was smiling at me mendacity on the bottom. Thankfully, he was sensible sufficient to know to solely put one shell within the gun. He knew that gun the best way I knew it that night time, with the soreness and throbbing reinforcing the worth of the lesson.

Six years later, my father and I have been duck looking with a bunch of his co-workers. He had the 1897 and I had my grandfather’s 16 gauge Stevens pump (I nonetheless have that gun as effectively).

After a morning of looking, my dad and I had simply break up from the primary social gathering and have been strolling again to our automobile when a hunter’s shotgun by accident discharged into the thigh of one other hunter. A life-and-death scenario for a brand-new 16-year-old. I grew up quick that day. Earlier than that, soccer appeared to be crucial factor in my life. However when a person’s life is hanging within the steadiness, you understand that soccer isn’t that important. I discovered a useful lesson that day about firearm security, muzzle self-discipline, first assist, and the implications of what occurs when firearm security guidelines aren’t adopted.

Years later, I used to be at an alumni operate and was launched to somebody I used to be instructed was an essential member of the group. The identify sounded acquainted and I requested him if he was the one which had been wounded in a looking accident a dozen years earlier. He was. And he repeated time and again about how grateful he was to these males who saved his life. Because the saying goes, it’s a small world.

One other lesson I’ve discovered from this gun is to put in writing down every gun’s story. I plan to move on each one in every of my firearms to my kids. And if I have been to die tomorrow, they might discover a sheet of paper within the gun secure with the story of each gun within the secure. Who gave it to me or how a lot I paid for it. How I’ve used it. As a result of 100 years from now, I need my great-grandchild to know the story of the gun she or he is holding of their fingers.

This shotgun has a lifetime of its personal. And tales that go along with it. I want this gun might speak in order that I might study all of these different tales that nobody ever wrote down. The excellent news is that its life just isn’t over. You possibly can guess that it’ll be in my fingers throughout a future dove hunt when I’ve one in every of my children with me. And I hope I can nonetheless hunt when a future grandson or granddaughter is sufficiently old to go along with me.

Sometime, my son (or daughter) can have it of their fingers after they take their son or daughter looking. And possibly their grandson or granddaughter. This Mannequin 1897 Winchester is greater than only a shotgun. It’s a thread that ties collectively the technology of my household – previous, current, and generations to return.