Winchester 1901 shotgun

Brutus

Brutus

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West of most places....and in Alberta
Well,
I have one of these circa 1910.
In the past I single loaded it with Parker Brothers 2 7/8 all brass hull.
I had some kind of inclination it needed the 2 5/8 hull to operate as a repeater from the magazine.
Someone a long time ago shortened the barrel to 20 inches and did a fine job remounting the bead.
Well the mag accepted three tonite (2 7/8), but wholly man, to get it to eject it was best if you were really angry for the complete downstroke!
If I didn't have a moustache the sharp edge of the empty hull would have cut my upper lip I am certain.

Anyone else run a 10 gauge 1887-1901?

Impressions please.
 
Not sure if any "Riot gun" models were made as late as 1910 but with a 20" barrel it would sure be worth it to research a bit. A visit to a Winchester forum will offer up a few things that will or will not point to it being a riot gun. One of the litmus tests the collectors look for is the quality & placement of the bead on a shortened barrel.
 
I had a Winchester lever action shotgun for a short while; my memory was that it was limited in how long the shells could be and in my case, it had either a rough chamber or a slightly bulged one and the extractors tore through the rims easily.. Wish I still had it and would modify the gun by making wider extractors to get around the tearing problem

cheers mooncoon
 
I have heard on American forums where these shotguns more popular, the 1887 had one extractor versus two for the 1901. And the 1901 had the two part lever. Factory stamping 1901 upper tang, 1887 lower tang.

Plus it was rumoured the 12 gauge 1893 Winchester pump gun barrel could be modified to fit the 1887 with minimal work on the threads.
Most of us already know that the 12 gauge was only offered in the 1887 model.
What's kind of neat with these lever shotguns single loading it even in the dark is very easily accomplished hand finding other hand. Top load. Also very easy to clean that barrel from the open breech end. Like many rifles.
 
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guns of that era usually had a 2.5" chamber. You can get it reamed by a gunsmith to accept 2.75 inch. Shortening the spring may allow you to load a few more shells. But the hard part will be making the ejection port larger if that's required.
 
My experience is an all brass 2 7/8 inch hull in my smokeless handload could be hand fed single load directly into the open chamber. It did fire, extract, eject.

The shorter 2 5/8 shell is unknown to me as I have yet to experiment with it through the magazine as a repeater. Brass or otherwise.
 
Try to shorten them a bit, the gun is designed for 2 3/4 inch 10ga shells, those should feed from the magazine. Overall length of an unfired shell is about 2.5"
 
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