10 Gauge, A View from the Past

[charlie cleveland]

the ithaca heavy duck guns have 2 7/8 chambers with steel barrels i shoot 3 inch heavy loads in mine got it from russ jackson...took a coupla good turkeys with this gun...these guns are affordable too....are the ithaca 12 ga magnums marked as such....charlie

[Researcher]

The true Ithaca 12-gauge 3-inch magnums were built on the same long NID frame, with the lug through the bottom, as the Magnum-Tens, with serial numbers from 500000 to 501011. The accounting Ithaca did back in the 1960s, showed they made 887 Magnum-Tens, and only made 87 Magnum-12s. Ithaca Gun Co. didn't begin cataloging the Magnum-12 until their 1937 catalogs, the first catalogs without the Super-Ten. However, I've recorded Magnum-12s with serial numbers as low as 500144, a No. 2E at the Cabelas flagship store in November 2002. Had a ring bulge behind the choke in the left barrel. The Magnum-12s were cataloged with 30-inch barrels, but I've seen them with 32- and 34-inch barrels. The No. 2E I mentioned above had 32-inch barrels and this No. 1 --

500155 02.jpg

500155 03.jpg

has 34-inch. The only $1000 grade NID was this Magnum-12 Walter Snyder did an article on in the latest The Double Gun Journal --

500536 03.jpg

[Cold Spring]

My friend Dave and I keep going back and forth on the correct nomenclature for the Ithaca NID 10-gauge with serial numbers in the 4xx,xxx series. He insists on using Super-Ten (bold emphasis as in Dave's first post here) whereas Ithaca's own literature repeatedly refers to the model as the Super 10 and that's what I've used in various writings.

Perhaps this is a good opportunity for Dave to tell us why he believes the correct name is the one he uses?

PS: this is my own pic, not copied from Dave's post.

[Cold Spring]

Seconded as "Super 10" by Walt Snyder, the Ithaca Gun Co Historian.

Here's a partial copy of a factory letter on a certain Super 10.

[Researcher]

It appears you guys have got me on that. Best excuse I can give is that I picked up "Super Ten" and "Magnum Ten" from Elmer's article in the September 1935, The American Rifleman, on his first year's experience with #500000. I shall work to mend the error of my ways.

[Craig Larter]

Egads

[Double Lab]

You are forgiven Dave.