Posted on 01/06/2020 5:07:55 AM PST by w1n1
This retro military model is made by the Upper Sandusky-based Ithaca Gun Company for their Dayton neighbor, Inland Manufacturing. The latter is best known for their excellent reproductions of World War II M1 carbines.
The American martial tradition is no stranger to shotguns. Militiamen employed fowling pieces in battle during the Revolutionary War, and the Confederate Cavalry wielded sawed-off shotguns in the Civil War.
It was during World War I that you might say the Army got serious about shotguns. It was, after all, the biggest war they had fought to date. Close combat in the trenches, and especially night fighting, favored the massive firepower of fast-shooting pump shotguns.
Each 00 buckshot round blasted out nine .33 caliber pellets, increasing the chances of a lethal hit on the enemy. WWI trench guns could shoot exceptionally fast because they lacked a trigger dis-connector.
This allowed them to fire with every pump of the action as long as the trigger was held back continuously. Today we would regard this as a safety flaw, but to the doughboy standing in an enemy trench in 1918, that extra bit of speed was regarded as an edge.
The Germans hated facing shotguns, and even filed a formal complaint that using shotguns was a violation of the rules of civilized warfare – to no avail. The trench gun was born. While it distinguished itself in battle, the trench gun was by no means a common frontline weapon. Records suggest that fewer than 40,000 were procured during the war, compared to more than 2,500,000 service rifles.
WHAT DISTINGUISHED THE military trench gun, with its 20-inch barrel and cylinder bore, from the era’s civilian riot gun (what we would today call a tactical shotgun) was the military’s addition of a barrel heat shield, bayonet lug and sling swivels.
The 16-inch M1917 Enfield bayonet could be fitted to the muzzle, and the heat shield on the barrel was added to allow the soldier to safely grip the hot barrel during bayonet fighting. The riot gun was made for civilian troubles and the trench gun for war.
The standard models were all pump action: the Winchester M12 and M31, Remington M31, Stevens M520, and rarest of all (with less than 1,500 produced), the Ithaca M37. Still, it wasn’t enough, and the venerable Winchester M97 joined other pump and even semiauto models from Stevens, Savage and Remington to arm American soldiers for rear-area guard duty and combat action on the front lines. Read the rest of Ithaca M37 trench gun.
Germany wanted to ban it at the Geneva convention because of its effectiveness.
Who is "we"?
Mothers Against Guns...Bloomberg's Suck-ups...screaming liberal snowflakes?
Anyone that knows what they are doing with ANY firearm should love this feature.
Deliver us from panty-waisted pearl-clutchers.
Another one invented by John Browning. Ithaca waited until the patents expired. First manufactured by Remington.
Bottom ejection was unusual.
I have an old Ithaca. It will definitely slam-fire. I never saw it as a problem so long as you know it’s going to do it.
We used shotguns a lot in the Danang harbor to blast at anything floating in the anchorage. We did a number a pallet of socks once. Lol.
One of our greatest enemies was boredom.
I just gave my Ithaca Model 37 Featherlight to my son. I bought that gun about 45 years ago, pretty sure from Montgomery Wards. Still works and in okay condition considering how I treated it when I was younger.
Kind of ironic that a number of fine weapons came out of Ithaca...the super-leftist City of Evil.
Dad was a weapons buff and had an opportunity to work with Ithaca firearms in the late 60s - he visited and decided, even then, the city wasn’t where he wanted to take his family...
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