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Anyone familiar with the workings of the 3 position tang safety on a Ithaca double pre-400,000?

Barrel selector and safety in the same unit. Push to either side and forward to fire.

Sometimes you can hang the safety up when neither barrel is selected and the button is pushed forward. Usually the left barrel is selected and shot first. It is easier to leave it there and just push the button forward. The left barrel is usually more open choked.

Selecting the right side first gives you the tightest choke first and opens up the chance of shoving a bit left on the safety button and getting hung up in the middle.
art

Huh? I thought Ithaca did what everybody else did- make the RH bbl the open one, LH bbl tighter choked. If I'm wrong, I stand corrected.

You may very well be right... Not the way I understand/stood it. Trying to find references to it and the only SXS here is not America and equally choked...

I have an early, all original Syracuse 12ga SxS. Right barrel is full, left is IC. It's the only SxS that I've run accross that's "bass ackwards".

Double trigger guns are typically right barrel, front trigger and left barrel, rear trigger... But I thought I had read they reversed that with single trigger guns.

Anyone know why the left tube fires first?

Craigster, I have a Lefever that is set up the same only it is set up ExtraFull and IC that way. Ryan

There were a few people who had their doubles made for the left barrel being the open barrel and fired first, when using double triggers. Not sure with single triggers. Single selective, it wouldn't matter.

John Olin was one I remember who preferred the left to be the tight barrel on double trigger guns. He thought that you could get off a second shot faster if you fired the rear trigger first. After shooting hundreds of shots at clay targets with a side by side, I tend to agree. It seems as if, when the rear trigger is fired first, the back movement of the gun causes your finger to go forward, and it is quicker to move your finger from the rear trigger to the front trigger, under recoil, instead of the other way around.

I don't know if he preferred the left barrel to be the more open on single selective trigger guns or not. With his influence at Winchester, I am sure he could have had his M21s made any way he wanted them.

I don't understand why African hunters who use double rifles. don't do the same thing. I think they could get off two shots faster by firing the rear trigger first.

Another theory, and I can't prove or disprove this one, is that the right barrel was fired the most, because the right barrel had less felt recoil because of the angle or fit of the gun to your shoulder and you often only saw one bird or animal at a time, and if you hit it, you wouldn't need the second shot.

Some said the recoil from the left barrel came straght back, and you felt it a little more. The right barrel supposedly recoils kind of outward, away from your shoulder. I couldn't tell much, if any difference. There were also those who thought a full choke kicked more than a modified or IC choke. I can't argue this point, either, without having access to a large number of precision test devices.