Winchester Model 12 20-gauge
 

A few pics of my Model 12 20-gauge straight gripper, 28" Nickel Steel, solid rib, Full choke, weight 6-9. Made in 1927.

She came to me with a headspace issue and resulting extraction problem. A replacement chamber ring had been improperly fitted, supposedly by a well known gunsmithing firm. Those familiar with Model 12's know the ring must be absolutely dead nuts concentric/sized to the back end of the chamber, and this one was was off. Normally that's done with special tooling from the muzzle end, but a NOS unfitted chamber ring and improvised setups on the lathe and mill did the trick here.

I shot her for the first time a few days ago, 42/44 on Super Sporting clays. She fed and extracted perfectly with a mix of Remington, Federal and Estate factory 7/8 ounce loads. All with modern steel base hulls that often cause problems in Model 12's. Ready to rock on! :)

There are some small raindrops on the Winny in these pics.

Beautiful Gun, Frank. What year did they change the model from 1912 to 12?

In Dave Riffle book on Model 12's the change was made in 1918.

nice.........charlie

Great shooting Frank,

Thanks for sharing pictures of the beautiful gun.

Stan

Seeing your gun Frank reminded me of one of my greatest regrets in gun trading. I had a 12 ga model 1912 Black Diamond with a 4 digit serial number. It too was straight grip and had a similar shape and checking pattern on the forend. Simmons vent rib and straight grip, the slide action was smooth as butter and it fit me like it was a part of my body. It pangs me to think I ever let her go.