I’ve had this old shotgun for over forty years. There were periods during those years where it didn’t see much use. A few years ago, Damsel and I bought some guns and started shooting regularly. Shortly after, I took the old gun off the shelf and cleaned it up. It really needed a lot of elbow grease to get the fine layer of oxydation off of the metal parts and the stock and fore-end needed a little scrubbing and oil. Now the old Ithaca gets to go to the range two or three times a year.
I took it today and put just five rounds through it. The Remington 870s pump action guns sort of spoil us because you load the chamber and the magazine and crank out five or seven rounds. This old gun, in contrast, requires you break the chamber open, load a round, cock the hammer, point and shoot.
The newer guns make me lazy, I guess, and I don’t shoot the old gun very much just because it’s tedious. But, my old Ithaca is fun to shoot once in a while just because it’s an old friend to me.
We had Ithaca Deer Slayers on the PD years ago (used 870’s when I retired) but you had to be careful. If you kept the trigger pulled back while you racked a round in, the gun would go off. You could go through a tube o’ slugs real fast, made for interesting times on the range with rookies…
I do not know if Ithaca has changed this heart stopping feature.
Well, this gun is an old one, and that hasn’t ever happened to me. I just went to the gun safe and tried holding the trigger while loading a ‘dry’ shell into the gun. I convinced myself that no heart-stopping accidental discharge is possible.
I would have had an 870 back in ’66 when I got this gun, but they were very expensive (for a part-time student and new father).
Don’t know about the lever action shotguns, never fired one. But the old pump shotguns did it. How does it (lever action) load?
Actually, the lever is only used to break the gun open so you can remove a spent round, insert a round in the chamber. Then snap it shut, pull back the hammer, point and squeeze. The operator is 90 percent of the ‘action.’
The only pump-action I have used is the 870.