All 6 types of shotgun are fun in different ways

[H. K. Uriah, SASS #74619]

Traditionally, I've been a 97 guy.   For various reasons, I have been shooting my 87, single and double barrel shotguns a lot more of late.  (Doubles and singles each get get 2 categories, with and without external hammers.)   In doing so, I have come to realize that each type of shotgun has its own unique level of "fun to shoot" going for it.   I am not saying here that any one type is better than another, although for most us, that is probably true.   Some folks can run an 87 fast, and others will struggle with it.   But I have found that no matter how good or bad I am with each type, I enjoy all of them.   Each gives a different experience, and can be rewarding in different ways if you get really good with them.   Heck, having come close, I am sure that with practice I could reload a single in time to shoot the popper before it hits the ground.  As it was, I got it just afterwards the one time I tried, so who knows?  I was surprised how much fun that $50 Hopkins and Allen was overall, and I will use it again.  Stepping up to the line with my Dad's 19" Parker makes me feel good, even if the pattern is so wide it doesn't hit hard enough to knock over the targets most of the time.  Granted, I am still trying to get rid of some underloaded mouse farts, but there is a way to compensate.    I just give it both barrels!  Won't do that with proper loads though...   The 30" F/F Parker knocks stuff down better with its tighter pattern.   I've got a hammered LC Smith I am eager to try for the challenge, and taking the Darne out turns heads every time.   The exceedingly rare stage where you are allowed to stoke an 87 or a 97 is always smile inducing when you get to cut loose as fast as you can, and the 87 itself has unique challenges, that once you master them, you get a sense of accomplishment very different from the others.   

Variety, they say, is the spice of life.   And to my pleasant surprise, I have found that the shotgun can offer a lot of interesting flavors.

[High Spade Mikey Wilson]

I have a '97, three Stoegers, and a hammered Hopkins & Allen. I enjoy shooting all of them. Maybe sometime I might look into an '87 to complete the group.

[H. K. Uriah, SASS #74619]

And now I'll point out that, for me, this is rather ironic as when I started this game, I thought the shotgun would be the part that appealed to me the least.   Not saying it's appeals the most now, but only that appreciate its part in the game in a way I had not realized I would all those years ago.

[Widder, SASS #59054]

Since the mid 70's,  I've shto a lot of pistols and rifles, but I only fired a SG about 1/2 dozen times with some friends.

Really, only about 6 or 7 shots with a SG.

 

Then when I joined SASS in 2004, I got a couple SxS and tried them for about 2 years.   I just couldn't adapt to them.

I also tried a friends 87 with distain.  

 

Then ironically, a friend handed me a 97 at his house one day and said.....'try this'.

I immediately started a love relationship with the 97 and its been good for me.

 

I agree with you, folks should try a bunch of options with the SG.  It could become a new 

relationship that helps put some new spice in your life.

 

..........Widder

[H. K. Uriah, SASS #74619]

3 hours ago, Widder, SASS #59054 said:

Then ironically, a friend handed me a 97 at his house one day and said.....'try this'.

I immediately started a love relationship with the 97 and its been good for me.

Before I actually got into the game and was learning about it, I read how the 97 was legal.   That intrigued me because this really strangle looking old timey pump shotgun was just more visually INTERESTING to me than a double was.  (Even though I had my Dad's Parker.)

Anyway, one day, I saw a really nice 97 with a 20" barrel.   The stock was stamped WPD, which I "interpret" to stand for Winchester Police Department.  This was my first primary main match shotgun, and it served me well.   I did eventually get a Cody letter for it, but it's one of their minimal ones that tells you the date it was made and nothing else.   (A lot of my Cody letters are that way...)  1930, if you want to know.

Anywho, while enjoying this gun, I decided that I wanted to find and obtain a long barreled 97, just to have one.   I eventually did find a 30" full choked one.  It's more worn with age, dating to 1909, and again, no other info in the letter.  This gun very much feels its age, but is still a good shooter.   I had to replace the, (I don't know what it's properly called) think that threads the barrel into the frame that can be adjusted to make the fit tighter.  Even at its tightest, it was loose.   But with the thing replaced its tight like it should be.   But here's the fun part, when I took it to a match the first time to use it, I figured, since everyone "knows" that short barreled shotguns are better suited to our game, that I'd not enjoy using this one.   I figured it would be used for Cowboy trap on occasion, but that would be it.   Well...   That's not what happened.  I absolutely loved the long barrel.   For one thing, I never missed with it, and the targets always went down every time.   Something I could not assert with the shorter barrel version.  So, this gun became my new primary main match shotgun.

The next 97 I got was a Norinco replica of the WWI trench gun.   Fun thing to stick a bayonet on for a Wild Bunch match.  (I've done it!)   When the came out, I had mentioned how cool they were to my Dad, and the next thing I knew, he bought me one as a gift.

Up next, I figured that since I'd never own a real Winchester 93, I'd find an obtain a 93/97 to approximate one to have in the collection.   Very well made gun.   Sadly, not SASS legal, but I still like having it.  

 But not too long after that, I found an honest to goodness real Winchester 93!   This one letters to 1895, the letter does note the 30" barrel, and while the finish is faded, mechanically, it is in superb condition.   I don't think it's been fired all that much.   I have loaded up some black powder shells for it, and it shoots quite nicely.   Oh, and the ONLY way I could get a shell to sorta fall out of the ejection port (using spent shells) so that the extractor could theoretically hit the primer on closing, was to tilt the gun more than 45 degrees to the right when cycling the action.  Something I do not do in real life.  Again, not SASS legal, but a nice thing to have in the collection.

Then, came my most recent 97.   A very nice Black Diamond Trap model.   The letter tells me it was made in 1914, and nothing else.   But this one is in near perfect condition as far as the action is concerned.  Again, I don't think it's been fired all that much.   But, it is now, at least officially, my primary main match shotgun.    This one gets a lot of commentary once people realize what it is.  

Those are my specific 97 stories.

 

[Trailrider #896]

The main problem with the '87 is NOT the gun itself, but the silly SAS rules that only allow loading two shells. The late, great Cathouse Bill Blatler and I ran side-by-side tests with a SxS double, and an '87. With the clock running, the empty '87 was loaded up full with 6 shells under the clock, while the double was fed, also under the clock with 3 x 2 shells. We then switched guns and reran the tests. In both cases the results were about the same, with Bill shooting slightly faster than me with either gun. My point is that the '87 would have been carried with a full magazine, and in a firefight would just have to keep shuckin'. 

[H. K. Uriah, SASS #74619]

2 hours ago, Trailrider #896 said:

The main problem with the '87 is NOT the gun itself, but the silly SAS rules that only allow loading two shells.

Same with the 97.  This is a rule that should be revisited.

And don't use the excuse that it's okay if the stage description allows it.   Over the years, I have seen this twice.   No one writes stages that way.

[Griff]

Before I started cowboy action, I had two disciplines I competed in, a skeet league and bullseye, with a little PPC thrown in.  But, I'd always loved cowboy guns... just didn't know of a venue where they were appropriate.  For skeet, I used a Remington 870, same action as the one in my squad car, same as the one I'd trained with in the Navy.  But... in the safe, I had an old hammerless Riverside Arms  coach gun in 12 gauge, in a perfectly operational state.  It required rebuilding a couple of times in the 1st 6 months of cowboy action.  I'd never seen an 1897 until my first cowboy match in '85, or a 1887 lever shotgun until I'd probably been cowboy shooting for 20 years.  Or, it I had, it never registered with me.  So I started with that Riverside, quickly upgrading it to Stoeger coach gun.  I didn't, & don't consider the 1897 a proper cowboy gun.  Undecided about the 1887.  In fact, prior to, during and after the formation of SASS, I'd argued that the 1897 belonged in the "Modern" category.    Clearly ahead of my time, as shown by its inclusion in WB, starting fully stoked like the rifle.  (As an aside;  there's no way a double shooter can keep up with a '97 that starts out fully stoked.)  It takes a pretty quick double shooter to keep up with a '97 when both are started empty.  At least since the time that Tequila started employing the "over-the-top" loading style, by holding 2 or 3 shells in the off hand and loading over the top.  Prior to this (circa '89), all the '97 shooters I'd seen loaded one in the port, close the action and loaded the 2nd in the tube.  And it's how I loaded the one Buck D Law loaned to me in AL for the one and only time I've used one in a cowboy match.  (Although I don't remember what Marauder loaned me at a monthly match in GA, probably a double as it doesn't stick out in my mind, although his Rugers do).  My first hammer double was one Pale Wolf loaned me at a shoot in OR (Roseburg).   I bought one from T-Bone shortly thereafter and a 2nd from Nate Kiowa Jones.  I bought my first '97 shortly after the advent of WB, a IAC imported Trench gun, solely for the purpose of WB.  I've since picked up 2 more and a mdl 12 for that discipline.  Although, the IAC has never balked, so the backups remain largely unnecessary.

 

That's my '97 story.  

 

But, I still prefer shooting in the Frontiersman category with my Cimarron 1878!