A fine old lady rides again!!

[Bugscuffle]

A while back I bought a Winchester Mod 97 on Gunbroker. It was ugly as sin and showing it's age (built in 1939). But the price was right and I wanted to putz with an old 97 anyway. The listing said that the barrel had been cut down to 25", but when I got it I took it all apart and examined it carefully. The barrel actually measured 26 1/4" from the breech to the muzzle and when I put my little finger down the muzzle I can feel a constriction about 1" back from the muzzle the runs all the way to the mussle. This constriction is part of the barrel, not something that is added after the barrel was made. The barrel does appear to be in much better condition than the rest of the gun and 1" doesn't seem to be a very long choke constriction, but I'm not familiar with shotgun chokes. It is marked FULL both top and bottom of the barrel. There is no serial number on the barrel, but all of the other parts have matching numbers. Did Winchester even make guns with 26" full choke barrels?

Anyway, here is what I received from the auction:
http://imageshack.us/g/808/pix0123732241.jpg/

With a lot of elbow grease, some Birchwood Casey refinishing products, a passel of time bent over the bench grinder and wire wheel and dremel tool, not to mention some excellent parts from Outlawgambler  (outlawgambler@gmail.com), I came out with this:
http://imageshack.us/g/691/dscf4079a.jpg/

So, how did I do for a first effort on a Win 97??

[maarty]

I'll give ya $50 for it lol...

Excellent job, in the first pics I had to wonder if someone had cut the stock down for a kid then kept adding rubber as the kid grew, what you've done to it is great... NOW GO SHOOT THE DAMN THING AND ENJOY IT