Home Forums Birds & Dogs Shotguns my cheap shotgun collection

That family shotgun was in my youngest brother's possession in 2000. I told the late Randy Ketchum of Lynnwood guns that I was missing my childhood Win 1897 with poly choke. He took me in the back room and showed me a basket case. He said there were one and a half shotguns there, enough to make one that works.

I used the AGI video to put one together. I sold the spare parts to Fiim flam on rec.guns forum in his pawn shop in Crystal Springs FL. He was subsequently stabbed with a samurai sword by a customer and shot the guy to death with a 25acp. He quit the biz. He later died of cancer, like Randy.

Then my father died and I was the executor. I told my brother he could have a pile of our father's valuable guns, if I could get my 97 back. He did it.

So now I have two. If you count what I got for the spare parts, neither cost me anything.


That is me with the family 97 in 1965. It does not have the poly choke yet.
It was a sawed off shotgun [legally] in the 1930s for the Seattle dock strike and my uncle's father's ship.


The C.S. Holmes sunk in WWII. It was still making money in the Alaskan fur trade until then. We got all the guns out before the navy got the ship.

Then my father had a full barrel put on at Warshalls Sporting good in Seattle in 1959. He bought a new Rem shotgun in 1963 and I got the 97 at age 12. I weighed 85 pounds and the pigeon loads on doves pushed me back a few feet.
I blew the end off the barrel with a muzzle obstruction, and it was sawed off legal again. My father paid for the poly choke when I was 15.