Choosing an old style police/riot pump shotgun

I have the 590, the 590A1, and I've just acquired two Ithaca 37 units, both from the 1950s. The 590A1 is a beast, the 590 is lighter and more felt recoil but the 37s are so damn smooth! That single bar vs the duals on everyone else seems to make it rack like butter!

Doing the 37s up to resemble an 80s Los Angeles police riot gun and the Ithaca Stakeout.

The next project will be an 870 to resemble the Vietnam-era combat shotguns.

Numerich has all the parts you could dream of for the old 870s and 37s.

The 37 is a nice price for a gun with some amazing features. If you go back and get an earlier one, the fact that they slam fire is great, never mind how they feel.
 
Ithaca !

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High Standard !

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0faustus0 said:
Bartok5, I think you missed my sarcasm and the topic of this thread!

This thread is about old school police/riot style pump shotguns with wood stocks ... and from an area where polymer stocks and optic sights were not really a thing yet ... ;)
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Whoops, my bad. Your sarcasm went right over my feeble head. I offer my abject apologies for intruding on your Warm Wooden Love-Fest with images of my soul-less Polymer abominations! The horror! The shame!

In the interests of maintaining peace and tranquillity, I offer an image of my Smith and Wesson Model 3000 Police Riot Gun. Yes, I DO have me some wood in the collection:


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Better angle of my favorite 870. One upside to them vs the 37 or a lot of the other older model is the ease of running a mag extension.
On another note I’ve always thought an older auto 5 with a shorter barrel would be a lot of fun. I bought one once with the intention to cut it down but ended up liking it too much as is.
 
Greenhorse six said:
I'm a Mossberg/Ithaca 37 guy .
But for classic looks , Remington 870.

For the smoothest action, Ithaca 37 , it's like glass .
The Ithaca will also cycle mini shells.
And there's a trick were you can load a round stright into the chamber with practice ,be careful, especially if it can slam fire , you don't want a ND.

The Winchester 1200/1300 has a recoil assisted slide , which is cool , speeds thing up a little.

And my personal favorite, the Mossberg 590 14inch barrel with wood.

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I think I've seen someone do the trick with direct loading a shell into a 37. So what can go wrong when doing that with a slam-fire version? Will it go off while you have your fingers inside the chamber or something? I'm a complete noob when it comes to shotguns, so I'm always up for learning more from folks that have owned these for a while.

Had no idea about the recoil-assisted slide on the Winchesters. That's a pretty cool feature.

That 14 inch Mossberg is a beaut. Love it!
 
0faustus0 said:
My vote would go to the Remington 870 as well. You have more options …. 14” barrel, 18”, 20” … rifle sights, ghost rings, bead sight … parkerized, polished blued, matt blued or nickel plated … laminated wood stock, plain police walnut stock or bowling pin finish walnut stocks with nice checkering …. Etc.

Not sure if these two from my safe qualify as a riot pumps … but they definitely have a “classic" look …. Both have smoothbore barrels with screw in Remchokes ....


Rem870_Police_GhostRing_MonteCarlo_2021_lowres.jpg




Rem870_Wingmaster_RifleSights_MonteCarlo_2024_lowres.jpg
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Those are some beautiful pieces dude! I would say they qualify as rioters.
 
.22LRGUY said:
I think the least expensive way to get an "old school" looking gun with superb parts availability would be to build-up a Mossberg 500 or an 870. I've seen the wood "Retrograde" furniture for sale on it's own, mate a set of those to a 14" Mossberg Shockwave and you're set?

Actual old school? Start with a Wingmaster and do some barrel shopping or have a gunsmith cut one down. The Wingmaster/Rifle Sight barrels are out there and excellent.

I like 37s too but I'd rather be working on/cleaning one of these^ models.

The High Standard riot guns are very good, the rifle sights on them about as good as a $50 Crosman airgun. BUT, the guns tend to be super slick and well built. I don't really know the history of them though, if you look at High Standard shotguns (sporting guns also sold under the brands J.C. Higgins and also Sears?) you'll see that the receivers are identical. I've seen almost new-looking JC Higgins pumps sit for a long time @ $300-$350, but they're full length barrels. I think if you did some digging, you might find that there would be parts compatibility between High Standard and these other brands?
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Yes, building one up is definitely a route I haven't considered until now. I would probably go the 870 route for that. I read somewhere that 870 Police Magnums are basically Wingmasters dressed up differently. Not sure how true that is.
 
Greenhorse six said:

I think this is pretty cool.


Because there isn't a trigger disconnect on the guns [pre 1975 IIRC] that can slam fire, when moving the slide forward with a live round and having anything hold the trigger back will result in a ND .
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Cool to see the different ways to load a shell into an Ithaca chamber. So it is possible to do, it just takes a bit of finesse.

I assume that if an ND happened while you are doing this, you can pretty much kiss your fingers goodbye?
 
ZEN403 said:
I have the 590, the 590A1, and I've just acquired two Ithaca 37 units, both from the 1950s. The 590A1 is a beast, the 590 is lighter and more felt recoil but the 37s are so damn smooth! That single bar vs the duals on everyone else seems to make it rack like butter!

Doing the 37s up to resemble an 80s Los Angeles police riot gun and the Ithaca Stakeout.

The next project will be an 870 to resemble the Vietnam-era combat shotguns.

Numerich has all the parts you could dream of for the old 870s and 37s.

The 37 is a nice price for a gun with some amazing features. If you go back and get an earlier one, the fact that they slam fire is great, never mind how they feel.
Click to expand...

I just checked out Numerich. They do have a lot of parts in stock which is awesome.

For the 590 and 590A1, I remember watching a Hickok45 video where he compared the two. He basically said that the 590 loaded weighs about the same as a 590A1 unloaded.

Would love to see how your Ithaca's turn out when you're done with them. Same goes for the Vietnam 870.
 
Bartok5 said:
Whoops, my bad. Your sarcasm went right over my feeble head. I offer my abject apologies for intruding on your Warm Wooden Love-Fest with images of my soul-less Polymer abominations! The horror! The shame!

In the interests of maintaining peace and tranquillity, I offer an image of my Smith and Wesson Model 3000 Police Riot Gun. Yes, I DO have me some wood in the collection:


View attachment 966035
Click to expand...

Nice! The S&W 3000 is one I completely overlooked. I'm guessing there are not too many of those around? I hardly ever hear about them.
 
257hunter said:
View attachment 966095

Better angle of my favorite 870. One upside to them vs the 37 or a lot of the other older model is the ease of running a mag extension.
On another note I’ve always thought an older auto 5 with a shorter barrel would be a lot of fun. I bought one once with the intention to cut it down but ended up liking it too much as is.
Click to expand...

Yes, being able to easily add a mag extension is definitely a plus for the 870.

For the Auto 5, I don't blame you for not wanting to chop up an original gun. I remember Auto 5s used to be pretty cheap but have gotten way more expensive lately. A shorty Auto 5 would be pretty cool though. If you still want to do that and are looking for a little inspiration...

 
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