Ithaca NID No. 2 Super-10 --

Attachment 75584

Ithaca NID No. 2E Magnum-10 --

Attachment 75583

Ah that explains alot . I have seen alot of other manufacturer's sxs 10 ga made before the 3.5 with the through lug like that . I guess it was something Ithaca was thought not needed on their 2 7/8 guns . Both of my hammer guns had a lug like that .

Looks like the Magnums barrels have more space between them ?

Ithaca NID No. 2 Super-10 --

Attachment 75585

Ithaca NID No. 2E Magnum-10 --

Attachment 75586

So what I'm gathering is that not all 10 gauges needed a beefed up action for the 3.5" . Ithaca did because it didn't have that bottom lug . Which is odd because I'm pretty sure that was common on 10 ga 2 7/8 guns . At least ones I have seen . Do you have a picture of the Super 10 and NID 10 mag lugs ?

I've never owned an Ithaca Mag 10 but had 7 or 8 Super 10's including several I've disassembled for study. The stock head bearing on the Super 10 is adequate although relatively small in surface area, and I wouldn't be surprised if the Mag 10 has a wider frame. Maybe Dave can round up a caliper and measure the width of the back end of both frames?

The Mag frame is certainly longer .

"Looks like" doesn't cut it. Milton has a very curious mind, brings up some great ideas, but he needs to invest in a Vernier caliper and give up on the "Looks like". Parker made 3 1/2" chambered tens before the advent of the Super X loads. I have a #6 frame PH that letters as a factory 3 1/2" gun and I'm sure they made a few #3 frame 3 1/2" guns before the Remington era also. I'm not sure if my #6 frame ten PH predates the Super X loads. I have seen 10 gauge Damascus barrel English guns that went through nitro proof with modern 3 1/2" shells also.

I no longer own a Magnum-10. Bought mine at a little shop in Brunswick, Maine. Fifteen years later, having never hunted with it, sold it to the Hartman Brothers at the Harrisburg, PA, Fairgrounds show, and the last time I saw it, Steve Lamboy had it in the ICD tent at Sandanona a couple of years later.

In the standard NID receiver the "box" portion of the frame is the same size from .410-bore to Super-10. Just the height and width of the standing breech and the firing pin spacing increases.

Sure that wasn't 3 1/4 inch? That is the longest 10-gauge cases I find being offered in the old ammunition catalogs. By 1910, UMC was no longer offering 10-gauge NPEs for smokeless powder longer than 2 7/8 inch and by the Rem-UMC 1918-19 catalog no 10-gauge NPEs were being offered longer than 2 7/8 inch.