I guess which one specifically are you talking about? Ithaca had 5 different designs of hammerless doubles including the NID. A few more if you want to add the Lefever and western arms variants too.
Each one was a completely different design from the others. The NID was the last one. It was the strongest by far. It was basically a design that borrowed from the best parts of other makers and meshed them together into one design. And this is how they advertised it too.
The flues, which was the design before the NID was made for the longest time period and was the simplest design of them all. But it got a bad reputation over the years due to the frames cracking and the breech balls failing. The guns were built to be very lightweight and when people used hotter loads than intended, bad things can happen. Of course the issues always root from user error, not the actual design. The frames on the flues were beefed up some in the later years, but the damage had been done as far as the opinion of them. In my opinion, the earlier flues and prior versions were much more finely finished than any NID ever was. Especially in the higher grades.
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B. Dudley
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