Here is my wife's cat and my early standard grade 12 gauge Winchester Model 21 choked Modified and full:




I finally took it (the shotgun) to where I could shoot a pattern
The cat stayed home
5 rounds, each barrel at 23 yards:

Modified Barrel:


Full Barrel:


As even I can see, both barrels are shooting quite high
Likely many pellets above the paper
I am pleased to see that the barrel marked "Full" is giving a tighter pattern

I will take the above into account my next trip to the trap line.

Shotguns sure are lots of fun

Nice old honest shotgun. Envy here.

I may have written this story before, so pardon the old Guy's memory. When I was about 12, all I wanted for Christmas was a shotgun. Dad was a bit frugal. I got the gun, but it was a bummer. A brand new Western Field, Montgomery Ward's version of a Mossberg 16 ga bolt action with a choke dingus on the barrel. I tried to not show my unappreciation for the gift, but I was much disappointed, and even more so when the family bird hunts took place.

Jack O'Conner said that I needed a Winchester 21 20 ga. I thought a 12 would be better. Our 50-51 version of on line shopping, the trusty Ward's catalog, had the field grade guns, but they were $325. I begged. Now that was a lot of money in those days, but Dad and I entered into a year long contract that required me to meet certain goals in the home, on the family farm, at school, and at church. These were things that I was going to be required to do anyway, so why not? The kicker was that we had to have a good harvest to swing the deal. I understood that.

All is well that ends well. Goals met, good crop, Dad said yes. There was this one problem. There was this pretty brown eyed neighbor girl that lived about three miles away that I had begun to notice. I needed wheels to pay her the proper attention, go to movies, take to parties, and whatever mid teen angers did in the mid fifties. We only had the one family car. My proposal to Dad was that we convert my gun money to another vehicle (used for sure). Dad readily agreed that we needed another car and immediately agreed, so here I am now at about fifteen with a decent old car in partners with Dad, and still shooting that bummer shotgun.

Again, all is well that ends well. A few years later, I married that brown eyed girl and sixty one years later I still have her. Best gun trade that I ever made. And guess what? For a fifty cent raffle ticket, I won an Ithica 37 Featherlight and started hunting quail and waterfowl in style. Not only did I get a wife, but a great FIL that was the best quail guide ever. I still wonder from time to time where my path might have taken me to, if I had bought the 21?

Jack

Things work out for a reason. Congrats!

Great story Jack. Made me smile.

Beautiful shotgun, envious to say the least. I own three model 12's but the 21 is surely the cream of the crop and yours is an excellent example.

Nice shotgun Bushmaster1313, and a lovely story jt402.
I think God sways our decisions and creates failures and unrealized plans or desires that turn into good things later a lot more than we realize.

Jack, it seems that your father was a good one and knew how to raise a son well.

I'll bet you have to thank him for a lot more than just your wife!

John

I'd gone with the M21 and a tandem bicycle. You would now have both the girl and the shotgun, while that jalopy is long gone.

I had several nice guns long before I had a car. Girls, I got around to them eventually.

Bushmaster1313, very nice shotgun.
jt402, great story!

After figuring out that the gun was shooting much higher than my other trap gun, I took it to the range, aimed low, and hit my first 20 birds

One advantage of the high point of impact is that I can seen the birds break.

Smoking a clay with an 85 year old field grade shotgun is big fun.

I just noticed that is a double trigger gun. I wonder what the percentage breakdown of M21 triggers is?

Thanks guys. Yes, Dad was kind of a hard case, but he did not raise any "snow flakes" and that includes my sister. Let us just say that he had a keen sense of what guidance we kids needed, I don't think that I ever really saw the pride that he had for me until later in his life when I was asked to give an address at a community wide homecoming function. You could almost see his buttons popping. He has been gone a few weeks over ten years. He is not forgotten. See you "over the rainbow, Dad....."

Jack