I've always liked my winchesters. I've owned several. Matter of fact, I've given all 3 of my sons their own winchesters when the were old enough and now they're all grown and families of their own. The market for them have shrunk a lot after they closed and sold out to FN. Sadly you seldom see mention of them these days with all the younger reddit crowd clamoring over other guns.
Finding a 16 bore speedpump has became increasingly difficult and just seems like a hole in my collection. I have a donor gun for the project that I could use. For that matter, I could buy all the parts I need to swap it over to 16 if I knew which are dedicated parts to where I could easily sell my 12 ga parts and essentially have little to nothing tied up in the conversion parts and maybe even come out ahead on it?
Just something I've been rolling around in my head for a while and with winter coming, wouldn't mind having a project in the works for when it's too ugly to get out and do anything else.
The more that I'm thinking about it, with both shells being 2-3/4", it may not even need a dedicated elevator. Mag tube and guts? I found the upper and lower 16 ga magazine throat. Bolt? I am unsure of. I need to check inside of there to see if there's a cartridge stop or not like mossbergs and most other pumps.
If they need their own dedicated bolt face though, from finding basically nothing online, would be the deal breaker. That's why with hardly no mention of it, I'm wondering if the 12 and 16 are not one in the same?
But, this is why I ask questions. I don't know everything.
I even considered converting a mossberg 500A over the 500B (16). But at the end of the day, I'd rather convert the winchester over than the mossberg though. While I have owned several 500's over the years, and I carry one frequently when going to check the trail cams for bears and wolves, at the end of the day, the winchester is just overall nicer.
