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Winchester 1897 didn't do too bad with a borrowed gun.

Congrats….nice work !!!!

Thanks buddy was a fun shoot at a nice club. I missed tying HOA by 1 point.

30" full choke? MCH? MB

I had one for a short while but it was in such bad shape I was afraid to shoot it. I sold it to a guy that was going to use it as a wall hanger.
Never shot one myself but looks like you shoot one very well, congrats.

I recall back in the 60s, my uncle had one. He was deadly with it on pheasants.

Did your thumb come out uncut....Yours isn't exactly tiny.

First time I ever cycled one of these, I left a piece of me with it! Lol! Still have the scar to prove it...

Yes I made it out alive and unharmed!

I have a 30" I can buy now, but really want a 32". We'll see!

What choke was in the gun you shot and did so well with? My old 97 is in the 171xxx serial range and dom was 1903 or there abouts. It has the 2 5/8" chamber , I have some Gamebore 2 1/2" loads for it to try on sharptail till I load some shorter shells. Mb

I bet I’ve sliced my thumb a half dozen times with 97s, slow learner I guess.

I had a guy once come into the shop I worked at with an immaculate 97, one of the very last ones built and it looked almost new. He wanted me to cut it off at 18” and put a bead on it for his nightstand gun. I begged him not to make me do it and he finally agreed to leave it alone but said he wasn’t a bird hunter and it would be basically useless to him. At that point I pleaded with him to sell it to me and he went so far as to tell me I could borrow it at any time for as long as I liked but he wouldn’t sell it. I sure would have liked to have brought it home with me when I moved down south.

I knew a guy who had a NIB 97 that his dad had from when he was running a general store. It had never sold, and the old man kept it. NIB 97. This was back in the early 1980s, I dunno what happened to the gun, I lost track of the folks who had it.

I also knew a guy who carried one in Vietnam, and he killed a tiger with it while on patrol one day. It jumped out onto the trail he was on, and he shot it three times before he could stop himself. He liked 97s, too.

I looked at them for years. The one I bought from my local LGS has character in spades steel smooth butt plate, open grip, round knob, small diameter grooved forend. The hammer was the old checkered one that working the action polished off the checkering, made for thumbs slipping off the hammer. An old woman and her 50 something daughter brought it in wanted to sell it, moving to town didn't think she' d need it. Allways stood in the corner of the mud room loaded ready to go. Varmints that came to visit and didn't leave on their own. Sharptails and some ducks they ate good but mostly what they raised and butchered on their ranch. Husband was older than her and bought it used after he made it back home from world war 2 the previous owner didn't make it back. They were tools to be used when needed and it didn't get fussed over with an oily rag much.
Shows just like when the owner tried to checker the grip with a file , that still shows too. Full choke 30" barrel still straight and no dents I could see. The action was real stiff and slow, the sales guy told me the old lady handled it like it was loaded, I guess because it was , he cycled 6 shells out of it. The action was slow and stiff from 60 + years of use and mud room storage. I looked it over for serious faults and could find none, coupla of late 20 to 30 somethings walked up and started yacking about how great it would be with the barrel sawed off for cowboy action shooting.
Asked me if I was done looking and handling it wanted to check it over himself. I smiled and told him to find his own cause this one is mine. Took It up to the counter and asked for the cash price and they knocked off all of 20 dollars didn't bother me much cause I allready decided it was mine. When I got home that night I heated up some leftovers and ate. Cleared off the table, spread an old newspaper and detail stripped it. Looked up serial date and looked like 1903 to me. Took better part of 4 hrs to get the grunge of 112 years off it and out of it. I put it back together and oiled the places it needed.worked pretty smooth and slick, I guess some of that grunge help polish it. Only problem now was it was no longer solid had some side to side flex. Took the barrel off and adjusted the take up mech 1 notch and put it back together. 1st time it had ever been tighten up. Full choke .694" constriction . Some 1 oz trap loads worked fine with me not missing more than a couple , 5-6 rounds of birds over several weeks. 1 1/4 oz. Of 6 's patterned fine but recoiled hard. It took a historical reference to jar my thinking that author said they held 6 in the magazine. Mine only holds 5 a little short of 6. On an inspiration I opened the action and eased in a fired federal hull that had no crimp memory left just straight hull. With an 1/8" left from full chambering you feel the end of the hull start to compress. Yup 2 5/8" chamber. So now I load shorter hulls with a patch under the crimp over the open center. I hardly ever use my front door allways enter thru the back door washer and dryer , tools ,odds and ends my mud room. The end of the barrel is 2" above the top edge of the rocker light switch, it isn't the light that tells me I am home. These old guns aren't made like this anymore but they can sure tell a story. Mb

Good shooting.

I've had a few over the years....Hard to go wrong with a John Browning design. One of the longest built guns...started several years before 1897 (I want to say 1893) had a few design changes and was changed to the 1897 model and sold till about 1959.

I recall reading an article on the 97 in an NRA magazine claimed the 1897 was the one of the strongest shotgun actions ever designed I believe the author had put a 30.06 barrel on one and the action held.

Not sure, I would have to ask the owner.