Home Forums Birds & Dogs Shotguns A plug for Ithaca Gun Company, Upper Sandusky, Ohio

StudDuck is right. I've owned a couple of BPS and never had that issue. BPSs are very reliable and fine pumps.

The 37 is a somewhat complex gun IMO. A John Browning design. According to Ithaca's gunsmith, there are mainly two ways the 37 can get out of timing. One is for the shell stop spring to wear and not hold shells until the right time. This can be fixed with a new spring. The other way is to shuck unfired shells through it, which I, admittedly, did do. That timing can be reset, according to him, by firing a round and then cycling the action fully. I did have an issue firing a round and cycling the action, so I don't know. It seems to be doing okay, now. Apparently, the preferred method of getting rounds out of the tube on a 37 is to manually depress the shell stop. I tend to cycle them and saw the majority of my issues.

I do think the Hornady shells were partly to blame. Not only were many of the plastic hulls out of round, the rim diameter seems a hair smaller than Federal and Remington. The rim seems thinner, and the top of the rim has a steeper angle than the Feds or Rems. I was cussing the gun until I started having feeding problems with the same shells in my Savage 212. That Savage was having a hard time chambering and extracting Hornadys, though it would cycle Feds and Rems just fine. The dual extractors were just not holding onto the rim consistently.

Anyways, all fixed now.

Oh, and by the way. New Ithaca M37 barrels aren't like 37 barrels in the past. They are no longer "Roto Forged." Now, the barrel and the vent rib posts are made out of one piece of steel and the rib is slid onto dovetails then screwed into place, so if you ever damage the rib, you can slide it off and put a new one on. The part that the end cap tightens into is also once piece with the barrel. On the Deerslayer barrel in the picture, the part that the end cap tightens against, and the block ahead of it that the sling stud screws into, is also one piece with the barrel. None of these pieces are soldered on. The barrel and all those protuberances are all made out of one piece of steel. It's pretty impressive. I suppose that contributes to the cost of their barrels. I also like that the vent rib barrels aren't back-bored.