Ithaca 4E Knicks Comparison

[the spank]

As I posted in the Trap, Skeet & Sporting Clays forum about shooting my 4E Knick in a registered shoot I mentioned picking up another 4E Knick SBT while attending the shoot.
Having time to sit down sunday afternoon with CB and his charming and lovely wife who both extended their kindness and generosity to extend an invitation to stay at their home while attending the shoot CB and I decided to do a little comparison checking on the guns.
Serial # dates this latest Knick to 1963 which also hapoens to be my birth year and a small part of the reason I purchased the gun. It has to be a sign, right?
Stock dimensions are identical to my 1957 Knick as are barrel length and sight picture. I have not checked the weight but if there is a difference in weight/balance between the pair of Knicks I am not noticing it while handling them at home.
A thorough checking of both guns with a good quality set of bore gauges owned by CB and expertly guided by his experienced hands through the barrels several times showed an interesting development.
The recently acquired Knick has a consistent internal bore diameter of .731 throughout it's length until about 1/2" before the choke constriction starts where it tapers outward from .731 to .733 over a section a full 1/2" in length and then starts to constrict over a 2" length where it ends at the muzzle measuring .695. So does the gun have .036 constriction based on the .731 bore or .038 constriction based on the 1/2" section measuring .733 at the start of the choke? Bill and I discussed this development at length. There is no bulge in the barrel. There appears to be a small section made just like a jug choke. Possibly a worker setting up to do the choke work made a mistake when he started boring the choke? Or perhaps the gun was custom ordered this way by a customer? The gun does not appear to have been altered from the factory but to an inexperienced eye such as my own who knows? It's all a guess at this point.
In comparison the 1957 Knick has a beautiful consistent bore diameter of .732 for it's entire length and again like the other gun has a 2" section of choke that tapers to .696 at the muzzle offering .036 constriction.
The long 2" choke sections with .036 constriction likely explain the complete and utter inkballing of targets with the 1oz AA #7.5 loads with an advertised mv of 1180 fps. Obviously a deadly choke/load combo for these guns. The recently acquired '63 Knick is the top gun in the pictures and all original except for the later aftermarket high-viz style muzzle bead which I will swap back to an original Ithaca raybar sight to match my '57 to give me an identical sight picture for a back-up gun.

 

[sillymike]

Both beautiful guns!

My only (uneducated) guess would that the 1/2 of overbore ( or whatever you'd call it) was a slight machining mishap... Than again, I really don't know anything about barrel chocking
- Maybe Stephen will chime in... Or we can ask in the British shotgun thread...

 

[kamlooky]

Maybe a pattern board will define the out come?

 

[brybenn]

If you're taking votes on wood. Its tough but I like the top wood

 

[the spank]

If you're taking votes on wood. Its tough but I like the top wood

Neither are slouches in the wood department for sure. I don't see many Knicks with the more blonde wood with reds in them. This is the wood on the top one...


And this is the bottom. My preference is the bottom.

 

[Cow Town Bill]

I just pulled out my 4E and measured the chokes. Very similar to your two 4E's: .729 bore., .894 choke giving 35 thou constriction. Superb workmanship.
Ithaca varied the barrel thickness---a thicker barrel obviously making a heavier gun and a more weight forward. My 4E weighs 8 lb 9.8 oz and your 5E weighs 9 lb 0 oz with a 34" barrel.
Here's a couple pics of mine which was made in 1959---we will have to get some pics of all three together.

 

[the spank]

I just pulled out my 4E and measured the chokes. Very similar to your two 4E's: .729 bore., .894 choke giving 35 thou constriction. Superb workmanship.
Ithaca varied the barrel thickness---a thicker barrel obviously making a heavier gun and a more weight forward. My 4E weighs 8 lb 9.8 oz and your 5E weighs 9 lb 0 oz with a 34" barrel.
Here's a couple pics of mine which was made in 1959---we will have to get some pics of all three together.
View attachment 1175134View attachment 1175140

That would make a very nice picture indeed with three 4E's manufactured in a 7 year time period beginning in 1957 and through 1963. Considering only 5737 Knick SBT's in all grades were produced from 1922 to 1980 it is pretty incredible to realize that 16.57% or 951 Knicks of all grades were manufactured in the time frame between our guns mfg years. I wonder just how many survivors are out there? I've seen a few that had a very tough life that would be questionable to load and fire.
1957 - 155
1958 - 114
1959 - 146
1960 - 159
1961 - 124
1962 - 127
1963 - 126

 

[brybenn]

Neither are slouches in the wood department for sure. I don't see many Knicks with the more blonde wood with reds in them. This is the wood on the top one...
View attachment 1175085View attachment 1175086View attachment 1175087View attachment 1175088

And this is the bottom. My preference is the bottom. View attachment 1175079View attachment 1175080View attachment 1175081

Top wood looked better in the first Pic set. The 2nd set of photos I agree the darker looks better.

 

[Cow Town Bill]

That would make a very nice picture indeed with three 4E's manufactured in a 7 year time period beginning in 1957 and through 1963. Considering only 5737 Knick SBT's in all grades were produced from 1922 to 1980 it is pretty incredible to realize that 16.57% or 951 Knicks of all grades were manufactured in the time frame between our guns mfg years. I wonder just how many survivors are out there? I've seen a few that had a very tough life that would be questionable to load and fire.
1957 - 155
1958 - 114
1959 - 146
1960 - 159
1961 - 124
1962 - 127
1963 - 126

Its interesting too that all 3 guns are fully functional and can compete with the best of todays competition guns. You proved that this past weekend at AHEIA'S annual Stampede Grande.

 

[Falconflyer]

Bill, I think you made a typo writing down your choke constriction, I know what you meant though.

It's difficult to say why there is a variation in the ID of Spanks new Knick and the analytical part of my brain wonders why it is like that too but the simple part of my brain says it doesn't matter as long as the patterns are nice.
Congrats on the purchase Spank, that makes a real nice pair of guns, maybe you and Bill can get a Knick family picture together next week!

 

[the spank]

Bill, I think you made a typo writing down your choke constriction, I know what you meant though.

It's difficult to say why there is a variation in the ID of Spanks new Knick and the analytical part of my brain wonders why it is like that too but the simple part of my brain says it doesn't matter as long as the patterns are nice.
Congrats on the purchase Spank, that makes a real nice pair of guns, maybe you and Bill can get a Knick family picture together next week!

Most definitely. I should have my 5E back from some trigger work in time for our vintage guns get together too so we'll have to lay out all 4 for a picture.

 

[brybenn]

The wood on my 4e isn't quite as stunning as yours but the metal work is still sharp. Only has faint traces of the case hardening left though. I know mine isn't a Knick but would you happen to have production numbers for the Flues?

 

[Cow Town Bill]

Bill, I think you made a typo writing down your choke constriction, I know what you meant though.

It's difficult to say why there is a variation in the ID of Spanks new Knick and the analytical part of my brain wonders why it is like that too but the simple part of my brain says it doesn't matter as long as the patterns are nice.
Congrats on the purchase Spank, that makes a real nice pair of guns, maybe you and Bill can get a Knick family picture together next week!

Yes, that is a typo---you have the eye of an eagle---but the constriction is correct.

 

[the spank]

The wood on my 4e isn't quite as stunning as yours but the metal work is still sharp. Only has faint traces of the case hardening left though. I know mine isn't a Knick but would you happen to have production numbers for the Flues?

The Flues are really hard to get an accurate number on because the serial #'s take some huge jumps along the way that do not match actual production numbers. The best records available seem to point to around 2700+ Flues SBT's having been produced between 1914(introductory year) to 1923(last year produced). For example in the first year of production(1914) records show 5 Flues SBT's were made yet the next year(1915) the serial #'s jump by over 8000 to start the year. As the years go along serial #'s jump all over in leaps and bounds and would indicate that about 98,000 SBT's were made which was not the case. I think alot of the #'s were put in with Flues SxS production which did number over 225,000 produced.

 

[brybenn]

Ah. Mine has the T at the end of the serial number I was under the impression all Flues sbt ended with a T
I have a letter somewhere from ithaca stating the year of manufacture but im sure sure where it is after a couple moves. Iirc mine is 1917

 

[the spank]

Ah. Mine has the T at the end of the serial number I was under the impression all Flues sbt ended with a T
I have a letter somewhere from ithaca stating the year of manufacture but im sure sure where it is after a couple moves. Iirc mine is 1917

No not all have a T. I have a Knick with a T and from what I can ascertain a T at the end of the number is pretty rare. My 1957 4E Knick is also signed by Bill McGraw the engraver which is also a rare thing. He didn't start signing some until the late 50's. The engraving though hand done was done in house by a few different engravers and was considered "generic" as each grade had it's own identical pattern yet a close up look will reveal no two are exactly alike. Each artist changed little things here and there. McGraw was an engraver right from the early days and stayed until his retirement 50+ years later from what I've read. Bill Mains was another engraver who occasionally signed his name to his work. Ithacas with engravers names seem to be more in demand due to the nature of very few guns having been signed. And they knew how to hide their names in the engravings. It took me months before I located it on my Knick.