Home Forums Birds & Dogs Shotguns Win. 101 Shotguns

Howdy CF Shotgun amigos,

This was my post from the gunwriter's forum on the referenced topic. Got no replies there so thought I would re-post here. I am very curious as to cast, and the boring of my Win. 101. It is not my go to gun, but it is fun to own and look at, and shoot.

With all the Win. 101 gurus here, maybe I can find out something about mine. It is a Miroku 12 ga. field gun, 26" with VR, fixed chokes, the usual ejectors and SST. It is in excellent shape, and is a very well made and obviously high quality gun, but it is not one that I do my best shooting with.

For one thing, I shoot left handed, and although I cannot determine any cast, if there is any it would not be helpful for a lefty. For another, I believe the choke is way too open for much versatility as an upland gun. The barrels (left side) are marked skeet on both upper and lower (along with a Win. proof mark), but on the opposite side, the top barrel has a symbol that looks like <23 and the lower barrel has the symbol x33. These are just about even with the end of the 2 3/4" chamber. I suspect the upper symbol is also an x.

Do these denote thousandths of an inch or points of constriction? Or points of reverse constriction (bell)?

Thanks all.

forepaw

The Winchester Model 101 shotguns were made by Olin-Kodensha.

I own a couple of 20ga 101s. Don't be concerned about skeet/skeet, they will be fine for upland game bird shooting. My experience has been that a lot of hunters shoot upland guns that are choked too tightly. I don't know what the numbers indicate.

Well thanks. I tend to agree, but my experience with this one has been that on many upland shots, I recovered a puff of feathers but the bird flew on. I have only done rough patterning, nothing like the articles in "American Rifleman" but it looks like it is throwing a pattern that is wide open.

This would be expected with a skeet gun. For these western quail, it might be too much of a good thing.

It is deadly on close targets as long as I don't stop my swing.


forepaw