So true, soon after buying a basket case 97 and one that would not take down I realized what was going on.
"................ I can't tell you how many 1897's I've seen for sale at Gun shows with the mag tube in upside down. I've been allowed to fix a lot of them for the owners, in just 10 minutes with my Swiss Army Knife and they've been very thankful. Some just don't care and say NO, it'll sell anyway.
You can't believe how much easier it is to take down and put together a proper '97 with everything right. No forcing of parts and it works so much better. I was wonderi