The quintessential pump shotgun finds its way back to welcoming hands

The six shots sounded like thunder rolling across the wheat stubble, where a flock of snow geese cackled in protect as they took flight some 80 yards distant. As an observer, when the nod came from Dad, I ran to pick up the six geese lying in the field while Dad and his hunting partner picked up the empty shotshell hulls issued from their 12-gauge Winchester Model 12 Heavy Duck pump-action shotguns

In 1892, a fellow by the name of Spencer introduced the pump shotgun to American hunters. (The first patent for a pump-action firearm was granted in Britain in 1854.) Much as today’s pump guns, it held cartridges in a tubular magazine and was operated by pulling and pushing on a slide wrapped around the magazine tube.

It was a functional repeater and offered the hunter a generous cartridge capacity and an action that promoted fast repeat shots. The term “cornshucker” was quickly attributed to the action type. Operating the gun was like shucking an ear of corn.

Spencer’s concept was solid, but as luck would have it, John Moses Browning, the individual responsible for more advancement of small arms than perhaps anyone in history, had his own pump-action in the works. Winchester bought his invention and put it on the market as the Model 1893.

The M1893 had promise, but it arrived on the tail end of the black powder era. Smokeless powder, and the higher pressures it created, became the standard for small arms ammunition, and the M1893 did not possess adequate strength to harness the increased pressure.

Winchester asked Browning to develop a stronger version — this at a time when Browning believed the American hunter wanted a semi-auto shotgun with a tubular magazine for rapid repeat shots. Nevertheless, Browning did create a much-improved version of the pump gun, the Model 1897, known simply as the M97, which soon became the shotgun for the average American. Affordable, well-built, smooth as silk, this gun is still a magnificent example of the gun-making art of the late 1800s and early 1900s.

At that point in history, folks realized the capabilities of modern manufacturing and were not bashful about issuing demands for improvements in products. Much as the M97 was liked, there were a couple of objections.

It had a hammer, like the many Winchester and other rifles manufactured at the time. Hunters of the time didn’t mind the hammer on rifles and handguns but they did not like it on their shotguns. The M97 also had the disconcerting issue of scraping a fair amount of skin from the thumb of the firing hand if held a bit too high on the buttstock, when the action was “shucked.”

The next iteration of the pump shotgun may have been influenced by Browning, but the credit goes to Thomas Crossley Johnson, a young engineer employed by Winchester in 1885.

Johnson designed the pump shotgun that remains the gold standard for its type, and ironically enough set in motion the production of the shotgun that would become the most popular of its kind in the world.

Johnson’s creation, the Model 1912 Winchester, better known as the Model 12, was machined from the finest steel available at the time. It had that special, indefinable something that makes things instant classics, a gun for the ages. It became the most popular wild-fowling and target-shooting shotgun of the time — a runaway success that had Winchester’s chief competitor, Remington, scrambling for an answer.

The answer came in 1931, when Remington introduced the M31, a pump-action shotgun that was as well built and functioned as well as the M12. But it came with a higher price, and it came after the M12 was already the heartthrob of American wild-fowlers.

By 1949, Remington realized it could not continue to build the M31 and dropped it, only to introduce the 870 Wingmaster the following year. The rest, as they say, is history. Remington has sold more than 11 million Wingmasters, making it the most popular shotgun of all time by a large margin.

Winchester did not give up on the M12, insisting on producing the gun as cost of production mounted and eventually priced itself out of the market. It was discontinued in 1980, after generating some two million.

So, what the hell am I getting at this time, you might wonder. I grew up with folks who hunted wildfowl, practically to a religious level. They shot M12 Winchesters, and I longed for the day when I would have one. That day came in the fall of 1970, after spending a couple of years hunting with a single shot 20-gauge.

It was a used, field-grade 16-gauge built in the 1950s, and it was magnificent. I knew of Purdeys and Holland and Hollands by then, but for my young eyes, that M12 was just as good. Of course, I would have to have a 12-gauge as I got older, and I traded the 16 bore for a 12 bore M12, the first of several I would have. Then the double-gun bug bit me so hard that I haven’t hunted with anything but since around 1975.

A couple of months ago I was in a local gun shop, go figure, and on the used rack was a 16-gauge M12, built in 1952. I lost the serial number records of guns I have owned in a fire in 1994, so I cannot be sure, but it seemed possible that it may be the same M12 I started with so many years ago.

Thoughts of those simpler times washed over me. The memories of snow-driven duck days and rooster pheasants cackling on the flush. Being embarrassingly anthropomorphic with the dogs, I thought Winchester and Cheyenne would appreciate me hunting with that old gun.

I scraped up a couple of pistols I wasn’t using and made the trade.

I may be imagining it, but it seems like Winchester looked at me a bit funny when I pulled the old gun out of the case. But he was perfect that day, and maybe that was his way of saying he understood.

Steve Meyer is a longtime Alaskan and an avid shooter who lives in Kenai.

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