Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Winchester model 59 opinions

I have a line on one. It has the screw out chokes and it's a decent price. But from what I remember these guns were rather problematic and discontinued after a few years. The fiberglass on the barrel looks good and the gun is nice overall but I'm not sure if it's worth getting into?

I don't recall ever having seen interchangeable choke tubes until way after the few years this gun was in production. (I know the one my late father-in-law had was a fixed choke.) I am assuming the "screw out" choke tubes are a retrofit and, given the thin wall thickness of the steel liner inside the fiberglass, I don't think I'd want anything to do with it.

cra1948 is right, this gun preceded choke tubes by many years. Aside from the chancy business of shooting such a gun (fiberglass wrapped barrel cut for thin walls), I never liked the feel of them. Way to muzzle light for me. The innocent call them fast; those who know better call them whippy.

Moose, I bought one new in 1963...the Winchoke option was not available then, that came later...it has been a good, stone reliable field gun, kind of my idea of the ideal chukar gun in vertical Nevada. Then I passed it on to my son, who shot a lot of claybirds and quail, then last year he passed it on to the grandsons who are sticking their toes in the water with informal trap shooting. I suppose you could ruin the aluminum frame with a continuous diet of waterfowl baby magnums. The only thing I would advise, take the forearm off, pull the bolt back a little, rotate the barrel a quarter turn, withdraw it and inspect the floating chamber/locking sleeve for rust or corrosion damage. Some people never bothered to clean them of powder fouling, so they would draw moisture....that's about it in my experience. I think it is a great design...the 50 steel frame and 59 alloy frame.

I had one for a while, maybe 20 years ago--the model without choke tubes. For me it balanced fine, and never malfunctioned.

But it got sacrificed (along with another gun or two) to buy a Fausti DEA SL 28-gauge SxS, which they sent me to test for an article or two. Couldn't part with it.....

I thought that too but I was reading an online article that said the Winchester 59 was the first shotgun to have screw in chokes as an option

Well, if that's the case, and the price is right... I would never have expected a gun from the early 60's to have interchangeable choke tubes. Learn something every day.

"The gun was purpose built for carry. Its “Winlite” barrel featured fused and bonded fiber thread covering a thin metal tube while an aluminum alloy receiver also trimmed ounces off the weight of a conventional autoloader. The 59 could be ordered with among the first choke tubes offered to the public (marked “Versachoke” by Winchester)."

The Versa-Chokes were actually screwed onto the outside of the muzzle, not inside.

That's interesting! But makes sense

I own two model 59's. One has a IMP CYL choked barrel and the other has the Versa Lite system. The choke tubes screw into the barrel not over as previously noted. Keep them clean and pay special attention to the floating chamber for rust. Replace the 60 year old recoil spring with a new one from Wolff Gun Springs. There is lot's of info on these guns on the inter webs including instructions on how to time the action after a recoil spring change. (very important)
They are fun guns to shoot and very reliable if maintained a little. They will handle any 2 3/4" load but sticking to 1 1/8 OZ. loads is kinder to the old gun. I use mine with small steel shot (#6) for early season duck shooting. NOTE: I do this I don't advocate this for others. Use at your own discretion.
Clean the gun, inspect it well, change the recoil spring and I believe you will really enjoy it.

Darryl

Timing the action? Wow never would've guessed. I've changed the recoil spring on a model 50 before but didn't know anything about timing the action. When you hear all this and read about the cracked aluminum receivers it makes you appreciate the Remington 1100

Thanks for that info. My memory was faulty!

There was an early interchangeable choke system that screwed on over the outside, but I can’t recall whose or when.

Beretta.

Aren't those Versa-Lite's ported as well?

Yes

Yep! Thanks for jogging my memory.

They had somewhat of a reputation for cracking receivers (I've seen a few) so probably best to avoid heavy loads.