Small Arms of WWI Primer 107: US Winchester 1897 "Trench Gun"

with the United States declaration of war ordinance began a mad rush to gear up arms production and match rifle to rifle machine gun to machine gun against the best available in the conflict however one uniquely American weapon would also be fielded but to what effect [Music] all right I'm Matthias and this this is a winchester model 1897 riot gun with bayonet attachment some of you may know it as the trench gun let's get it over to light box though weighing in at 7.8 pounds and with an overall length of 39 and 1/2 inch it's a compact shotgun that still manages to fit 5 12-gauge cartridges in its magazine tube set under the barrel although you must load them singularly you can however get that capacity up to six by thumbing one in the chamber which was very common behavior at the time now I know a lot of you have been waiting to see this particular gun in action but before we even talk about Winchester what Alumnus we need to discuss the marshal use of shotguns now at its heart the shotgun is perhaps a more pure form of the shoulder arm than our modern rifles because long long ago smoothbore was the only way to shoot so just about every gun could fire either a singular ball or a handful of shot eventually we found more range and more accuracy by moving to minie balls and rifled barrels like the spiral on a football these subsequent changes made rifles a poor host though four shot pellets but that doesn't mean the shotgun was worthless in combat surely the ability to blast a scattering of projectiles in a wider pattern would have some practical use in a firefight when we think of pirates we almost immediately recall this the blunderbuss a single-shot black-powder shoulder arm which used a flared muzzle to more readily accept any variety of small projectiles you might want to fill it with and then you could angrily discharge those at anyone who might be impeding your day's hard work and perhaps a few of his buddies in the bargain childhood pirate fantasies aside these guns were useful for short-range fights when accuracy was subordinate to volume of fire and therefore made them popular with naval boarding parties cavalrymen prison guards and coach and male defenders the blunderbuss is also often credited for being the first dedicated marshal shotgun a firearm not meant for loading a solid ball or minie ball projectile but of course this gun is way too old for our show today and yet in terms of arms history it's just about as direct the precursors you can possibly get to our gun today simply because of the martial neglect of shotguns well with some exceptions for things like the Confederate use of shortened double barrel shotguns with bayonet mounts which strangely parallels nicely with our topic today but let's fast-forward to the metallic cartridge era this is a Springfield model 1881 forger shotgun a trap door action fitted with a smoothbore these guns were used by the frontier oriented US Army which kept them for hunting small game in order to augment their often bland rations and in hunting roles like that you really didn't need a very complicated shotgun the forager would actually remain in service as late as 1906 in some of the more remote outposts of the United States and by the 1890s which is when most of the technology that was involved in World War one starts to be adopted there was almost no military tension on the shotgun except it seemed again in the United States where ordnance was very curious about a new invention the slide action or pump action repeating shotgun as designed by Christopher Spenser and Sylvester Roper I have a later Bannerman made example here this gun introduced to the commercial world a reliable simple pump action shotgun with a five-shot tubular magazine matter of fact let's get a closer look at this whole thing our king I don't want to delay too long on this gun this is a Bannerman made Spenser style pump action shotgun if you look at it you can probably figure out how it works and there's no interlocks there's no safeties here you just pump and go so if I were to take this gun and go ahead and pump her back I'll open up the action and in this case this gun does acquire you unlike a modern shotgun to have that action open in order to feed into the magazine tube I got a dummy we'll throw it in there and then I'm gonna pump forward which will not draw it into the chamber like you would expect instead I'm going to have to cycle one more time and now our chamber live so if I were to pull the trigger on a real cartridge instead of a dummy this would fire and then once I had done that I would pump the action again it'll throw out that spent casings re-cock the action feed the next one ready to rock and roll now there's a bit of an oddity in trying to track the one carry the one to keep that cartridge in mind that it's here and then it's here you can see why this is not the design that stood the test time it's a bit confusing for your average person who's not paying attention to what they're doing however other than that sort of carry the one operation in the very way that this you know flipping block works other than that this works just like a modern shotgun you wouldn't be confused by it at all which is pretty dang cool realistically there is nothing about this guns handling that is unfamiliar to anyone who has worked a modern puff action gun which will tell you how good of a concept it was one of the earlier Spencer made guns was submitted to us ordinance in 1886 and it went through the usual exhaustive testing accuracy penetration rust over charged cartridges damaged cartridges and endurance firing and from everything I can find it aced all of it an exceptional firearm only one real problem though what do you do with a shotgun emphasis at that time was on longer ranged engagements and there was certain utility in an up-close-and-personal fighting weapon but not to the exclusion of being able to carry a rifle and carrying both a rifle and a shotgun was just too much weight no it's best to just stick with a rifle and a handgun as your close-range backup and call today there that said they would order some 350 or so Spencer's all the way up until 1893 because they did find one role in which a short range only weapon was practical guarding prisoners and factories period accounts revealed the same opinion was held by various police security and national guard forces all the way through World War one repeating shotguns particularly the Spencer were the superior choice for guard duties anti banditry and occasional riot control as well but why that answer comes down to the cartridge and this is where all hell breaks loose in a way because there are myriad of shotgun cartridges but let's hit some basics this is birdshot you can tell because of the numerous small light pellets the army only cares about this for game and target practice this is buckshot a handful of heavy larger pellets the most popular type of buckshot at that time in probably today is double odd which means a point three three inch diameter ball double ought buck pellets are roughly equivalent to a 32 a tcp bullet now by World War one the 12-gauge two and three-quarter chambering was pretty standard this one's more of a two and five-eighths and so was the nine pellet double-aught buckshot loading that means one blast of a Marshall shotgun was worth a whole magazine out of a ruby pistol that's not bad now the pattern or spread of the shot that would depend on several factors that cartridge construction itself can have some effect but mostly we think of barrel length and barrel choke which is what we will call for now the diameter at the muzzle choke patterns are better discussed elsewhere though because combat shotguns are almost exclusively cylinder board meaning no real choke distortion which is best for getting a wide spread of buckshot pellets okay so we get a lot of firepower and we get it in sort of a blast cone like a big projection outward I can see that you'd like that for something like riot control but why guards specifically whether prison or buildings or whatever well there's two reasons here one there was a strong belief that shotguns required less accurate fire to hit a man on the run and to a degree that is true you are getting a cone much larger than a single shot but you still have to aim and lead and other things they're not you know wonder weapons the second and more important advantage for guard duty is that shotgun pellets lose speed and thus lethality very quickly in other words they are much less effective at longer ranges which seems like a bad thing until you realize that guards are usually going to be shooting either indoors or at night in urban areas so a shotgun can really limit the damage to the surrounding populace and give you a good blast at the perpetrator they were also often cheaper than rifles making them a good alternative for the budget-conscious this practice leads us to the riot gun a shotgun with a 20-inch barrel cylinder board specifically geared for use with 12-gauge double-aught buck maximum spread lower muzzle velocities in easier handling in tight places now no one seems to remember the thousands of us spencer riot guns so i think it's time that i introduce another man entirely the biggest repeat guest star on our show John Moses Browning and American firearms inventing a machine he was at this time still weds to Winchester Repeating Arms and he had put the repeating part into a lever-action shotgun the model 1887 which the US Army also reviewed briefly but found wanting now the 1887 was a much bigger success in the commercial market and yet still seem to lack the reliability and handling of that Spencer pump gun I had so there was nothing for it Winchester would have to develop a pump-action shotgun all of their own and luckily browning had a notion of an improved design he sealed the idea up with a patent way back in 1890 and it would take Winchester some three years to get it to market resulting in the winchester model 1894 pump action and arguably the second ever slide action shotgun boy was that one argument though this isn't our story today but basically Bannerman who now owned Spencer's patent hence the Bannerman shock and I had they went after Winchester over their patent on the slide action which prompted Winchester to buy up prototypes and even manufacture examples from patent formation on prior slide operated designs in firearms world ultimately Winchester would win their case and the right to produce the 1893 which proved to be a fair success selling some 34,000 or so in just four years of production while it did not appear in the catalogs Winchester also produced a riot version for military and police use this was doubtlessly marketed directly 50 1893 shotguns I'm unsure which configuration were purchased for ordnance testing in 1895 chief of ordnance Brigadier General Flagler would appoint a testing board in December of that year which convened in January of 1896 they abused the 1893 the same as they had the previous Spenser and found it overall to be an improvement and worthy of military service and in the final statement we see exactly what they expected of it the board has therefore no suggestions nor recommendations to suggest in the way of improving the gun for the use of sentinels in the military service sentinels is a word for guards while the military was happy the commercial market wasn't quite as easily contented the 1893 required numerous manufacturing changes over the few years it was produced most of these were performance or reliability improvements but the shotgun market was also turning into smokeless powder faster and faster and early smokeless was terrible in shotgun shells it liked being compressed to higher pressures and was more easily affected by ambient moisture large paper shells they were in an ideal home for early smokeless powder so misfires specifically hanging fires were really common but that rapid pumping action yeah you're gonna get a lot of cartridges that are actually exploding while already being ejected the market also moved from a 2 and 5/8 inch shell length to a 2 and 3/4 inch shell length being more common so Winchester would eventually stop chasing individual changes and take one big swipe at fixing all of the 1893 up to the best possible gun today this resulted in the creation of the model 1897 which actually carried on from the 1893 serial run so there No 1897 number one MSRP $25 though I have seen period serious ads as low as $17 this is why people like Sears by 1898 they would introduce a new variation the takedown model at only $2 extra this became the most popular option by a mile now it's been repeated often that Winchester recalled the previous 1893 s but actually that just began in 1901 if you sent in an 1893 for repair they would optionally send you in 1897 as a replacement it's likely because by then it probably was cheaper to just give you the 1897 than to keep trying to repair in 1893 with parts that you're no longer stocking and honestly those parts can't interchange because there's a fair few differences between the two guns the receiver shape for the ejection port the addition of a magazine pinning screw shorter receiver holding bolt the operating handle received an internal spring the slide lock took a release pin and plunger the breech block was straightened out and took a new firing pin locked the magazine received a new collar to prevent spontaneous disassembly the stock was lengthened and given a different drop and a shell guide was added to the carrier block to prevent cartridges from escaping whenever you held the gun slightly over center to the right so yeah pretty much everything was changed a bit probably the biggest feature Oh explored on the 1893 but implemented on the start of the 1897 was the recoil lock which meant that if the hammer were to this guy's a little aspect if the hammer were to drop and there is no bang like right now and you were to open up nothing you got to go forward click and then you can open up that action this goes a long way to prevent those hangfire's from popping off outside of battery the 1897 was initially offered in 12-gauge only but would expand to 16 gauge as well in 1900 but never to 10 gauge that was the exclusive domain of the winchester 1901 which in turn was not produced in 12 age either now if Winchester thought getting into a new model number would stop the flow of tiny little fixes well no the first three years saw a lot of minor changes and each time a letter was placed above the serial number in order to kind of keep track George Madison his winchester handbook points to 37 major in 52 minor changes made in the first twelve years of production of this shotgun the 97 was a living canvas for Winchester if anyone is curious the letter above the serial was e by the time of our riot gun today okay it's not exactly our trench gun but mechanically it's all we need so let's get a closer look at this commercial Winchester 1897 to better understand what we're really talking about all right gang check it out we got a 97 here although this is a Mixmaster very early C block missing some later features of the gun but with a thick wrist and later yeah this is this is all over the place this is like you'd find in a pawn shop in America anywhere all sorts of features prepared over the years because they've had such long lives and they're so watch such well-built guns now this one was borrowed in a hurry because maze pristine example is over at Bruno's being pulled apart in order to do the animation and we realized we wanted to show you a demo long gun with takedown features so quick tour we got a long shotgun with a high comb semi pistol grip coming into our receiver takedown assembly at our for stock and magazine tube with barrel in this case a nice long barrel this one is set to if we check the other side right about in here you won't be able to see it clearly but I will see the letter c yl cylinder bore you may see full you may see Impe for improved you may seem odd for modified choke settings are something that you will have to look up on your own for what they do because that is not part of our military shotgun series okay so here's our gun coming from the Spencer we have one big advantage which is that I can take a dummy cartridge and load it whenever I want even with the action closed if I want to get the action open I cannot just pump away I actually have to come up here and pump forward more on why in a moment and then once I've pumped for I can then pump back watch for that bolt coming out the rear once I pump back I can then pump forward with another quick snap ah ha ha ha now what is that done that carried our cartridge up and into the chamber and it cocked our hammer alright there you may have noticed that bolt come out the rear to watch your toodles so from here I can discharge firearm by pulling the trigger I will go ahead and not do that now though because let's say that I am concerned about safety well there's a safety of sorts I can hold the hammer pull the trigger and then this one is very dirty and beat up so it doesn't like doing this easily there we go I can then ride that hammer spooky spooky because if you let it go it's going into that firing pin I can write it there where it can no longer advance it is in the half notch safety so no bang go unless I either pump the action or manually [ __ ] the hammer all the way back from there I can fire it boom and then if I had actually gotten that boom my non-dominant hand would be on this force dock and the gun would have recoiled rearward this is hard to do on a camera guys the governor recoiled that way why I held still now while I held still me gun went rearward it's the same effect as me pumping forward while the gun stays still they still get that click that recoil safety has kicked in and therefore the gun knows that is either discharged or you have intentionally shoved forward in both cases it's now happy to let you as long as the hammer is down give up that cartridge so I'm just going to pump that out give me one second weak extraction on this old bird all right there we are right well there's one other possible way to set this gun up now let me get this pump forward okay sorry guys it's just easier to do from the shoulder I pumped your back forward and our hammers back let's say we have a live one in the chamber or not who cares we want to get this gun open and now forward or back she and doing anything that's what this big old button here's for you give that a push you pull this forward and then back and then you are back into the gun open and ready not too bad right okay so I've covered the basics but what else is there well check this out if I were to hold this trigger down and then pump this gun all the way to the rear feed the next round and then pump it forward whoa that's my hammer and it's all the way down what the heck well that's cuz there's no disconnect on the trigger in theory you can fill up the magazine pull the trigger and then just keep pumping it on every forward stroke you will get another bang that's what's known as slam fire and a lot of people are very tickled by it even though it has limited possible uses now on the last part unique to this gun but not on the trench gun it's still something that you probably show you have a takedown system this was done so that was easier to store these guns for transport because a lot of sportsmen would throw them into bags in order to get on and off the bus on and off the ferry on and off whatever means of conveyance that would take them to the place where they would shoot all the birds so up at the front we have a pin that we can push I want to be very clear about these by the way if yours if you have one of these guns and this thing's flopping around all the time it's in backwards just take it all the way out flip it around and put it back in the way these were set up the tension should be so that this comes most of the way out to the bottom but it more easily as held up that's just a little tip and trick a lot of people suffer this problem I see a lot of guns with these pins backwards and they just sort of open themselves up with that pin out we can then rotate this this one's very smooth once we've rotated it we can pull the magazine tube out and with the magazine tube out the stop for the for stock is part of the magazine tube so now the force doc come all the way for that pump can come all the way forward when it's all the way forward it's no longer down in the receiver and therefore we can twist we twist about 90 degrees and then feel for it we are out there's an interrupted screw design that allows this to lock together and now I have two halves of a shotgun much easier for transport that's not too bad I guess there's no time like the present really to get a look inside one of these things and see how it actually works first we'll load up the tubular magazine with five rounds of 12-gauge note the cartridge stops in orange pressing the action release is only necessary when the hammer is back this button depresses a set of internal pins the longer of which connects to the recoil lock bar this in turn blocks the path of the action slides arm pressing the button flexes the recoil lock the same is achieved when the hammer is down it flexes because the front is snagged on the tail end of the action slides arm if we pump forward this recoil lock is freed to tuck out of the way now we'll focus on the action slide arms shaped lug this rides in a path in the carrier causing it to drop and unlock the action from there the lug itself is mostly neutral as the locking surface under the bolt is what pushes the carrier the rest of the way pumping forward the action slide arms lug does more work guiding the carrier back into the lock position the bolt is operated by the same action slide though not from the small projecting lug instead the body of the slide arm impacts a hook which in turn drags the bolt along rearward the hook drops onto the action slide arms so that it can be pulled back forward Hamming up and releasing the action slide on the four-stroke home a seer is suspended between the trigger and hammer part of the carrier assembly when the trigger is pressed it releases the hammer which in turn strikes the firing pin this time we'll continue holding the trigger back and cycle the action with the pump just as the action comes to lock the sear connects again with a still depressed trigger and the gun immediately discharges this is slamfire the 97 does have an out-of-battery safety on the firing pin this spring-loaded block keeps the firing pin locked rearward until it is depressed upwards by the closed carrier assembly here is the cartridge guide which really only helps keep ammunition from escaping before chambering as the carrier opens it strikes a projecting screw lifting it higher than the carrier and helping to cut the next cartridge as the carrier Rises so does the guide until it impacts the bolt and is shoved back down the front of the carrier assembly here in orange displaces the cartridge stops releasing just the next cartridge in the magazine which then rests on the carriers Ford face until it drops clear allowing the next cartridge to feed but also freeing the stops to prevent the one behind if we lower the hammer into the half cocked position we can see it's deep-set notch which won't allow us to pull the trigger in this position the hammer also blocks the second pin connected to our recoil lock release meaning we cannot unlock the recoil lock and therefore the whole action is frozen until we return to full [ __ ] and finally the extractor and ejector work just like you would expect almost immediately the 1897 was a runaway success sales were so strong that it became sort of the de-facto repeating shotgun in the market dwarfing the Spencer design that is sort of spawned from roughly half of all photos I see of sporting shotguns in the hands of people from 1900 to 1940 our winchester 97 s they are everywhere and they were just popular for sport law enforcement security firms and couriers like American Express well they bottom as well so where does the US Army come back into the picture though not until after the spanish-american war having soundly defeated Spain the u.s. found itself administering the Philippines we went over this in detail in our Colt News Service episode but just to review when the u.s. went in the Philippines they mostly bribed the local Muslim minority moto Peoples in order to give themselves an honor up that fight with the majority Tagalog once they were properly civilized they now tandem dwith the Tagalog in the Philippine Constabulary they took on the Moro specific to the fight with the Moto are two distinct types of fighter one is the guerrilla which is exactly what you would expect regularly smuggling weapons disguising as civilians and planning dangerous surprise attacks the other well I don't have a photo of that guy because he's a rare that's the gentleman Tahoe now that's a sort of pseudo-religious crazed suicide attacker armed with whatever he can lay hands on which was usually a variety of Spears and swords derman taro is actually a Spanish name for a native Moro tradition which involved a man praying receiving blessings saving all of his hair off and dressing in all white and then often binding his limbs to prevent blood loss from minor to major injuries before arming himself and going on a one-way mission to kill a specific target or group of targets the practice is a bit nuanced and I won't claim to understand it all but what you should know is that a true government ro is usually a more individual personal choice unless a common sight than a regular gorilla both however were apt to leap at soldiers with terrifyingly long and sharp weapons and I'm betting a fair share of guerrillas got into that limb binding thing which again gave them a much slower death in the face of bullets in the dense jungle environment these short-range attacks were devastating even against better armed US soldiers plenty of these ended with one or more US servicemen dead from a split skull with a native fighter at the end of his bayonet the crowd gurgenson and 38 caliber Colts were not cutting it this would lead to a reissue of the colt 1873 single action revolver with its 45 caliber cartridge and the adoption of the Colt 1909 chambering the same basically the US forces in the face of these surprise attacks were favoring the most possible stopping power they could get out of their first shot on target because they were afraid of not getting another shot on target and curiously there was one gun that seemed to do the trick that was already in their inventory this would be the Remington 1893 or number three single shot shotgun roughly 5000 of these had been bought between 1900 and 1904 ibly for both the utility of hunting and to equip native troops regardless of why they were first ordered now years later with the motor of surprise attacks the Remington single shots were proved to be man Stoppers as a matter of fact I know of at least one account in which a simple shotgun proved effective it's a bit violent so viewer beware this is taken from jungle patrol by Vic Hurley as the mad Muhammad Ian hurled down the company Street his eyes fixed on sergeant oswalde palace as the first object of his attack the sergeant went down pierced through with the spear riddled then with bullets the moro turned methodically to the nearest American soldiers racing into point-blank fire he cut down four american troopers with his barong before lieutenant Copic was able to deliver a full charge of a shotgun at close range yeah we're gonna need more shotguns and something other than single shot please honey those 1897 riot guns yeah that's the stuff buy up whatever you can lay hands on now we all need a special run yeah to my knowledge there was actually no distinct production for the 1897 right gun for the Philippines instead the US military bought up a normal amount and only a few hundred or so it's even been suggested that many were full-length and later cut down for the Philippines now the Philippine 1897 that means it's a bit more bespoke than later wartime purchases ultimately the shotgun would not be the Wonder weapon to pacify the Moro by the way that was done with a mix of politics payoffs punitive campaigns and well some religiously motivated post-mortem defacement of human remains these were different times but still the u.s. now has had a taste of the marshal riot gun in combat again a fresh taste unfortunately for the 1897 the conflict was largely over by 1912 and there still wasn't a great demand for a standard-issue shotgun its role was still completely niche and that would be the whole of our story today if not for the fact that war were declared [Music] [Music] that would be April 16 1917 for the US by the way now the US had been making money hand over fist throughout the conflict producing some of the best firearms money can buy for the auntaunt but in all the hurry we sort of forgot to make many firearms for ourselves equipment shortages were so severe that we actually sent men ahead of their guns letting them serve with the French and British and use their equipment even with US forces in the field under our own command machine gun shortages in particular would last making the French Hotchkis practically standard-issue on the rifle front we were doing a fair bit better though we had preemptively sped up 1903 production but not by enough thankfully the introduction of the 1917 rifle which was produced in massive commercial numbers made up for the difference quickly for training we also had plenty of Krag still on hand still if you could replace a home bound rifle with something cheaper and more available you know the sort of thing guards would use yep that's where that 1897 right gun was the ticket and they started flowing but they weren't the only ones to be pressed into service the long barrels were also used sometimes up in the guard towers but usually they were reserved for aerial training teaching the core concept of leading a target in flight and also probably because clay shooting is really fun actually I have seen 97's rolled into other training roles honestly it's just a handy firearm to have around without sacrificing a possible frontline rifle Winchester records show that 1473 model 1897 s were delivered during the war these are distinct from the riot version and so we'll have to assume that they are although long commercial model this only represents direct orders many more could have been bought from retailer inventories as needed at specific bases or commands to my knowledge the full-length 97's were not US property mark and are indistinguishable from regular period commercial production I found exactly zero applications in which a commercial style was used in combat so again when does the trench gun become a concept period sources claim the original shotgun in combat idea came from William G eager the resident of Valdosta Georgia who apparently wrote to the War Department that an automatic shotgun should be used in combat regardless if his notion was the actual start of it or not we do know that it was floated by Major General John J Pershing this was the commander of the American Expeditionary Force all-black Jack himself who had served in the Philippines as an officer and so he is intimately familiar with the particular anxieties of close quarters fighting in the use of the riot shotgun don't forget the u.s. is coming into an already deadlocked fight we know we need a combined armed strategy using spotting planes use time to artillery anti machine-gun light machine guns with grenade launchers augmented infantry with higher suppressive fire like the B AR but once we're in the trench then what we still have to kill those guys directly man to man those things are cramped narrow and they take hard right turns every dozen yards to Pershing the suggestion of a shotgun for trench clearing was inspired to him you could just pull the trigger and pump away in either direction and drop Germans by the pair at close range the only real downside was that unlike the service rifle once empty the shotgun did not have a bayonet in reserve but of course that's the issue we are seeking to correct with Pershing's request in hand both Winchester and Remington went to work there's just one problem yeah that muzzle ring isn't gonna work out now if your Remington this apparently isn't an issue just dig out the old rolling block bayonets and maybe open them up a scooch that's not gonna work on a standard-issue 1905 though to be fair neither was Winchester's solution they were producing the model 1917 bayonet which was a clone of the British pattern thirteen thanks to their prior production of that p14 rifle good news though the US has way more 1917 bayonets and rifles the 1905 s in Springfields anyway so Winchester really just needs a mount for the blade that they're already making to put it on the shotgun that they're already making superintendent Johnny Utterson took care of the muzzle ring issue by simply offsetting it under the barrel which may look a bit ungainly but it does get the job done nicely and by the way I actually heard it possibly apocryphal but possibly true story that when they first introduced the new bayonet log right here actually on these shotguns to ordinance officers some army officers were upset about that offset they thought it would weaken it apparently a quick-thinking Winchester man explained that they needed that distance of the blade from the bore so that the buckshot does it hit the bayonet I don't feel like it solves a lot of problems quickly it's like a 1918 Dilbert cartoon right behind the bayonet lug engineer Henry brewer added a ventilated steel handguard meant to allow handling of a shotgun in bayonet fighting after dispersing the contents of the magazine this whole package becomes the type W and fitted on a riot gun along with some sling swivels well you finally get this guy today so we can finally take a better look now overall this guy has the same general features of the gun you saw before hi combs that my pistol grip would stock although in this case sling swivel down the bottom wrist links I bring this back up same receiver except in this case fix frame we don't have that separate piece that ties our barrel and our magazine tube all together into one assembly as we come forward you're gonna see a heat shield that's for doing our bayonet fighting and grabbing and then to get further forward we got a sling swivel and we've got a hole Banat blog setup now what that does is it allows us to do something with this particular guy so just this oh and we'll take that and shove it right on there check it out dad and I look foot and a half to my shotgun it's pretty cool but I might put an eye out so I'm just gonna I'm just gonna oh like every collector does the shove these things on and can't get them back off all right so we're back in and we're done wiggling our camera I want to point out something else about this particular bayonet blog what it does is it has three screws that fit into three notches in the underside of the barrel and then it tensions down so you have a little bit afforded back control and a lot of like squeezing yoke we've got riveted and ground on to this more sort of robust steel column I got this much thinner sheet steel perforated heat shield now on the World War one guns we've got one two three four five six rows later on the World War two there's gonna be a simpler pattern also in World War two this will be a takedown not a fixed frame so fixed frame old or one this screw right here just keeps this magazine tube from rotating by the way okay I want to point out one last feature up here though before I forget this guy actually also adds to the function of being a magazine hanger so normally you would have a device that hangs the magazine as a matter of fact I still have our 97 so let me grab that that guy right there see him he holds on the magazine there's no need for it when you have the bayonet lug because the bayonet lug does the hanging these guns are valuable and therefore very often fake the markings are faked the bayonet lugs are faked they'll leave the magazine hangers on with bayonet lug if anything is wrong with the gun the gun is wrong just discount that the value is too high and the fakes are too numerous there are probably five fakes for everyone real trench shotgun I don't know why other than they are very easy to fake and the difference between a two hundred dollar ninety seven and a two thousand dollar trench gun is significant so it's worth doing the fakery if you want to buy one of these you must go buy burrs Canfield's book that we referenced for the series because he does a lot of detail work on the serial range features all of it must be straight before you commit your funds don't get taken guys all right so I'm gonna slide this down while we're at the action which works the same as the previous gun do you want to point out one key difference from our launcher earlier gun which is that instead of a screw here we have these buttons so I've got them on both sides now these are linked to the springs that tene are cartridges so if I pop that guy in there and I want him or the rest of his friends back out I can just do a double pinch hmm and I can unload the gun that's actually extremely convenient I know a lot of you guys didn't maybe dealt with older guns and had to sort of cycle everything out of the magazine it's a little annoying that the feedstuff in the chamber just to get out of the gun what a nice improvement of course when that possibly works we're going to find out the cartridges could be a little sticky all right so that's our trench gun no other major differences from what you saw from a commercial series and really a lot of the differences that you see are not any difference in a commercial riot gun if this were commercial right gun it would not have the sling swivels on the rear it would not have this heat shield it would have the regular hanger and that would be about it there's not gonna be any big changes I do however want to show you some markings patented plastic and pokey and now I'm pointing cyl right there cylinder bore all of these will be cylinder bore guns they will all be 12-gauge we're talking about us World War one contract guns if I flip this guy over you gonna see a pretty much hand mark usually fairly crooked so don't be too concerned about that us with flaming bomb there's also a number of other minor marks that appear on these guns regularly like the Winchester proof marks themselves a lot of people tell you that these are Marshall these are the Winchester proof marks don't get taken in the thing that you're really caring about over and above all there is just as a quick tip make sure you got your flaming bomb make sure it really is a cylinder or gun this is where a lot of them get sort of turned around on you know they chopped down something full and therefore they say oh no knows they chopped down fold-in it's like yeah turn to cam Fields Bullock don't even trust this video folks if you're gonna spend money get the book first it will save you a lot of heartbreak I deal with a lot of these in my inbox all the time okay so I think that's gonna wrap us up for taking a look at this so we can get back to business we made it to our gun today that means we can finally let me shoot it so let's get out to the range [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] okay this thing is pretty cool and I'm 100% certain that it was a war winning wonder weapon and the Germans were super duper scared the press at the time also agreed with me you see news of the bayonet fitted riot gun spread fairly quickly and it struck something of a chord Americans felt uniquely connected to the shotgun it evoked notions of the Wild West and the humble sportsmen also the idea that we would win the war with this one weird trick than no one thought of well it was too much to resist so as early as May 1918 we start to get quotes like these which I lifted from outdoor life firing from the hip holding back the trigger and pumping the forehand the shooter can lay down a perfect barrage in front of him that will be effective for more than 100 yards we wouldn't ask for anything better than one of these guns with a full magazine of buckshot shells and if you please plenty more the same sort of ammunition cramming full every pocket that there is in a uniform with such a gun even at night it would be almost impossible to miss your opponent at anything like fighting distance they were really selling the crap out of this gun and it has not even remotely reached the trenches yet this one is my personal favorite the only umbrella that will assist anyone when the trench shotgun is showering pellets over the universe is an armored tank oh snap this thing sounds awesome when are we issuing it well supposedly Pershing ordered 10,000 but that gets murky for reasons we'll cover a moment by June of 1918 though we do have a known memo which records 5,000 were already on hand 4,000 were heading off to prison guards and 1000 were being reserved for patrol duties in no-man's land at the front that same month some other memo start flying around setting up the basic field test for live fire testing of these particular shotguns on the battlefield 50 trench shotguns were issued to the following divisions the 22nd 35th 5th 82nd and 150 were sent to the 77th lucky ducks the commanding general of each was directed to report back on the utility and effectiveness of the guns in both offensive and defensive warfare now before we get into their reports I just want to point out that during the testing phase three shotguns are known to have been captured by German forces on July 27th these came from the men of the 77th division and they proved to be a sore point for the Germans who at this time simply fumed on the matter but the u.s. press they went nuts story started erupting about US servicemen capturing 20 not 30 Germans with one shotgun and they might each other up they even started claiming dough boys were shooting grenades out of the air I actually blamed that story on this DuPont ad which says it a bit more tongue-in-cheek but next thing you know it's being reported as fact we actually tested this notion in a previous episode in our Remington 10 episode to be specific recall the only standard-issue ammo at the front was double-aught buckshot making this a challenging shot and while theoretically possible the results even on a hit are so mixed I would rather just dug your renée's are scary so the press is happy the Germans are miffed how about the troops how do they feel well they have mixed feelings let's start with positive though many felt the shotgun was extremely effective on patrol in no-man's land it was widely preferred for night fighting and excellent against small groups of enemy patrols or Scouts some thought it was completely demoralizing to the enemy and wherever it was dry out the guns were 100% reliable negative reports included issues with limited range meaning fighting under 50 yards was recommended which is uncomfortably close the standard Webb gear was also terrible for holding shotgun shells so soldiers often just filled their pockets but since these were paper shells they were often damaged guards and others who often unloaded and reloaded the guns noticed the same the paper shells were taking damage and being wasted and then on the wet areas of the front the shotgun was universally hated simply because it would not fire more than one shot some of you may be noticing a pattern here the provided paper case 12-gauge ammunition was not working out on the front lines it was easily damaged in transport and handling and in wet conditions it swelled up to jam the magazine feed turning the guns into single shots at best there was an attempt to fix this by ordering full brass shells but these took time to deliver and few if any made it into the fight brass shells also had their own issues with feeding and binding though not enough to warrant some comments for what war won the army also designed a 32 round shell bag but again likely few if anywhere ever delivered before the Armistice it really that's about it for the oh so fearsome trench gun I am being a bit heavy-handed though because I do know of one account of the 97 definitively winning the day sergeant Lloyd M Siebert would earn a Medal of Honor for his actions in September of 1918 suffering from illness sergeant Siebert remained with his platoon and led his men with the highest courage and leadership under heavy shell and machine gun fire with two other soldiers he charged a machine gun emplacement in advance of their company he himself killing one of the enemy with a shotgun and capturing two others all right point one for the 97 right gun it was a devastating weapon in dry weather at night and under 50 yards in range and all other instances infantry preferred a rifle or a pistol so hardly the war winner we were hoping for but still a strong weapon in a very neat role unfortunately the US wasn't the only country to see the shotgun as an opportunity having captured more of these things in September Germany saw an opening to wield the trench shotgun right back at the untucked although they did it with paper they delivered their attack in the form of a cablegram on September 14th 1918 the German government protests the use of shotguns by the American army it calls attention to the fact that according to the laws of war every prisoner found to have in his possession such guns or ammunition belonging thereto forfeits his life this protest is based upon article 23 of the hague conventions respecting the laws and customs of war on land reply by cable is required before October 1st 1918 by the way that article is one banning arms meant to cause unnecessary suffering and I know a lot of you are going to scoff at things like gas warfare and the reprisal attacks in Belgium but Uncle Sam didn't want to needlessly lose his captured boys the matter was actually put to the Judge Advocate General's Office Brigadier General Samuel T Ansel reviewed the matter and responded he found the German protests to be without merit mostly on the basis that at last a buck shot there's no different than the burst of an artillery shells shrapnel now because the shotgun was legal and warfare in the u.s. is perspective any executions of shotgunners by the Germans well we warned them that they would be met with reprisal executions of German prisoners of war and we had a lot more of those there have been no documented cases of Germans executing us shotgunners and no cases of reprisal so I guess that threat worked Germany did however take every chance to call the u.s. practice barbaric and savage which is really what they were after propaganda not an actual fear of the shotgun but of course tit for tat the German cablegram gave plenty of fuel to the fires the US press had already stoked about this particular gun there is but one hope to be wrong from this ethical confusion of the Germans it may be that their search for atrocities among the enemy means a real though misdirected an overzealous beginning of a moral awakening the early manifestations of such development are too crude however to constitute a definite promise Bern by the way I found a lot of these articles searching for terms like right gun trench shotgun sawed-off shotgun less so when I searched for trench gun and that's because that term only turns up later in 1918 a product of fresh short and unfortunately there was already a well-known use for the term trench gun in the military vernacular the French model 1916 37-millimeter infantry support gun a very light piece of artillery that the u.s. also made some use of I've also seen mortars and even the VB grenade referred to as trench guns in that period never the 97 though not in a military document it was just the riot shotgun with or without bayonet military inventory numbers can actually get really weird because the lack of any care between those terms you see the gun recorded as a riot gun or just a winchester 97 or a shotgun 12-gauge or whatever thankfully the few notes from Winchester we have are a bit more specific the earliest contract I can find this from January of 1918 for 12,500 80 riot guns with bayonet an ordinance memo from late September 1918 reveals total orders of Winchester riot guns to be 35,000 195 only trouble is they don't differentiate between the bayonet mounted and the plain a final Winchester memo seems to clear this up though just twelve thousand two hundred to total trench style guns and eighteen thousand two hundred five riot guns without banette lugs so roughly 30,000 total for the US government but that September and ordnance memo reports only fifteen thousand nine hundred thirty nine delivered at that time with roughly 10,000 of those shipped to Europe so far the ship guns are most likely to be banded but we can't be sure likely Winchester was going all out on the 1897 for the planned 1919 offensive they were going to make at least thirty-five thousand but like everything else the government probably just sort of reduced that order down or straight-up pulled the plug on it when the Armistice was declared while the army might extend contracts for war essential things like machine guns and rifles stockpiling shotguns was probably not a high priority and I'm betting Winchester was left holding the ball on a lot of these guns notably several thousand or more riot guns with bayonet lugs or mixed parts thereof I say this because currently many collectors will say a non-us March trench gun is common and not to worry about it surely got a few Germans anyway but I'm bet the unmarked guns were never taken in by the US government and were instead most likely marketed post-war by Winchester to police National Guard and prisons which by the way they did serve with all of these honestly they were in rather high demand during the pression era or with all the banditry and mail robberies but that's a bit beyond our scope today instead I'd like to bring it back around to the final question why the heck didn't the government go with the model 12 there was at least one prototype with a bayonet adapter which was really the same as the W model the gun is better sealed and more modern certainly one of the best ever made and yet it would only see a trench configuration for World War two was it that the 97 was easier to produce in large numbers was it that the 97 had already served was it that the external hammer acting as an indicator reminded them in the 1911 it may be easier to use was it because the external bolt oh wow it to shed mud easier and not clog up whereas the sealed model 12 action maybe it would compress the mud in there that one seems less likely but I'm just putting out there anyway only something like 600 model 12 riot guns were bought by the government and they were exclusively used at home to be fair to the 97 it was the most successful repeating shotgun I know of manufactured until 1957 over 1 million would be made of course as many of you know the 97 would again get a bayonet log albeit slightly different for World War 2 this time it was a takedown model as well but again a story for another day instead we'll just check in on May and see how she feels about actually wielding this thing alright gang once more we've made room for May and there's plenty of room for this little darling let's put that in your hands you will now have a winchester model 97 riot gun with bayonet attachment not a trench gun nobody called it that except for the newspapers and then everyone else for a hundred years so I guess maybe it is now considered a trench gun yes but but you have the wool bore one right gun with bayonet it's a shotgun we've talked about one other shotgun before but we've done a lot of research since then let's talk about ergonomics how does this particular thing feel in your hands so guys of course I'm an American and I own a shotgun that's not surprising and I actually happen to own a winchester 97 myself I wish it were this riot shotgun but unfortunately that is not mine mine is a 20 inch barrel so I'm used to taking that bad boy out to go shooting some clays having some fun with some birdshot that's my standard drill so a shotgun especially a pump-action shotgun is not something I'm unfamiliar with but let's get into it a little bit so my winchester has the later thicker wrist so when I come into this guy I'm expecting you know a little more girth to it I love how thin that wrist is unfortunately it is a little more frail than mine and I can already see it on here it's got a little bit of cracking on the side that does come with that which is why they ended up moving on to a thicker wrist later on to prevent that from happening that being said I can kind of understand why people would like this better it feels better one and then two it helped them to kind of create this load dip here before the comb into the semi pistol grip and this area this gun dives it dives into the ground amazingly steep draw and then hike on it but it is absolutely necessary simply because when the action is open look at that I even kept my thumb as low right here and it still actually scraped the top of my thumb just a little bit and that's just because it's meant for you to one thumb over with this guy I would recommend it in two it's just to prevent in case you are a thumb to the side it does encase your thumb over it does at least protect your thumb some because it drops you very low yeah it looks like they're really trying to prevent you from choking up enough on the gun to accidentally slice the webbing of your hand or beat up your thumb right and then they've got this semi pistol good drop so low down here so that it hopefully keeps you that far back which it is and I was actually afraid one was first handed this that it would push me too far back too far away from the trigger housing and no it actually does kind of let me it cure it use me right up on the trigger exactly where I need to be so that's not too bad no does create a very tall sharp comb how does that feel against your cheek I personally like it granted it is a bit sharper than what you're expecting so I could kind of see how that's something that you're a little bit uncomfortable with but if the places it places your cheek weld right where it needs to be up against the comb so I think it's perfect it's really great for looking down the sights awesome so overall fantastic up here in the rear I'm already digging that so let's get into some more stuff obviously pump-action something we are all familiar with when using these shotguns it's not that unusual however for this one in particular you need to remember when dry hammer Ford you need to pump Ford and you hear there's a little tiny tip not from the chair or the chair for me I know I know come on I'm just trying not to do that but you can hear a tiny little tick when you pump forward and it's it's very faint but that's all it needs and I don't want to say it even moves maybe a centimeter if that but that's all you need and then you can pump her back brick notice that's all I'm doing all I'm doing is moving my left hand I'm just back using the forehead I'm not doing anything else with this gun and I can open her up to go ahead and feed in my rounds and from here on out the only thing that's gonna be moving aside from my trigger finger is the pump like that's all I need to do at that point this gun loaded it is good to rock and roll so as a combat person you're saying you only need to keep track of trigger pump trigger pump charge your pump it's really all there is in your world if that's all I'm looking to do now for instance if I'm looking to do something like use the safety so in the half cocked position cool that's great locks everything up what's the trigger up I can't pump I can't do anything I can't even not this button doesn't do anything either it's it's dead when I go to [ __ ] the hammer all the way back was the world the same I can't pump it at all that's the only time in which this button comes in handy ladies and gentlemen is whenever hammers all the way back you need to depress it in order to pump forward again a little bit look like and open the action again and you're good to go but that's really the only instance in which you'd use that but which your world changes from their normal shooting environment and when you're gonna handling the gun empty you can just let the hammer back down and then just pump it up you'll need the button theoretically the problem is live chamber live cartridge in the chamber you don't want everybody thinks they have full control that hammer and they slip playing with ppk/s and stuff like that like people just slip the hammers a negligent discharge right that's a good thing Winchester even way back then gave us a button to get in and out of the hammer back state without dropping the hammer to the half [ __ ] or any other position it's a good button but it's a bunt you only need on one occasion and yet we still have issues as new shooters from time to time and o'the ice has experienced it just as often as I do you tell them the one instance in which that button is really necessary for you as a new shooter a new experience of this gun and you'll see them lightly just keeping their thumb on it when they're trying to work the action normal going through rounds and they don't need to but for some reason they just it's like forgetting to carry the one kind of thing it's just an extra little step you know it's not it's not even on them you got to understand you're being told like any other shotgun pump and trigger that part everybody's good with so are then its if it doesn't go bang you have to rocket forward and then pump it back and it doesn't you don't think you have to explain that you do because you're not always handing somebody a live chamber gun so it's also the first pump they always pumped forward back yep and you're right go ahead say no yeah well the ones I'll also do is they'll forget that they need to do that pump forward when they'll go to use the button when the hammer is all the way back you'll see it all the time they'll forget one extra little thing because it's not just one step it's multiple steps yes or no no I'm pressing the button but the guns not moving well you gotta also pump forward it doesn't seem complicated and yet once you're there and you're kind of a hurry and you're new to it you're trying to remember two three four things only at certain times once the gun is chambered and ready to go it is as simple as it could possibly be and that's what's necessary for combat but that's not what you're doing nine times out of ten with the gun nine times out of ten with the gun you're pulling buttons and moving forward and back and doing weird stuff right we ended up handling it way more than we did outside of and off the range than we ever do actually shooting it and that's just normal things that's not that's not different so not life-threatening but a little bit of a training thing to pay attention to I would say yeah I would agree and then the other thing is these two buttons down here that kind of trips people up because they're like well what's going on there it's not part of the safety it's it's not part of working the action open or close what do I do with that and you have to tell them these buttons are just for ejecting rounds out of the magazine and yet still they'll reach for that button on the right thinking it's the further back button and it's just the stuff going on that can be confusing to a shooter right but once you get used to it I would argue like with an hour probably like an hour practice on the range of just constantly having fun with clays for a day that's probably all you need you'll have it from there unless you like you know riding a bike or driving stick you forget to do it for six months and then it might take you a minute to get used to it again also for the people they issued these two they were probably already familiar with the 97 it was a very common commercial shotgun it was very much a well-known American weapon and for all the complexity that these controls add they add a lot of utility it allows you to unload the mag without cycling through it allows you to open up the action without dropping the hammer so these are good things to have they're just all so ever so slightly confusing because there's all these other states versus a bolt-action when you're like safe or not safe and then bolt it open and that's really all you're thinking about like the only extra bits that come with that or if you have something like a magazine cut off or something like that yeah it's true or if you have like end blocks that you can kick out away so you can't get more complex but generally for some reason people have a much easier time with that concept than dealing with shotguns for the first time I'm not sure why so while we're talking about it in terms of ergonomics how do you feel about having that slide action up front because we were just talking about how bolt actions are are different from shotguns with a bolt-action in combat you're moving up here by your head in a space that you're already taking up with a shotgun with that four end you're moving out in the ether in front of you is that going to cause any change in how you handle this gun absolutely so for me I'm gonna want to make sure that I definitely pull this as deep into my shoulder as possible because whenever you're having to pump forward like that you got to make sure you're really pulling it deep into your shoulder pulling it off your shoulders such an anything to do with these guys none unfortunately on top of that the shotgun itself kind of limits my position abilities so I can't really lie prone with them because I need to be able to move all up in this area which is not normal or if I wanted to post it up on something like the in the edge of a trench or something like that it really wouldn't be very useful in the situations unlike a bolt-action where all the action like oath I was mentioning was up here all my arm are up here is doing is just for stabilizing it really doesn't need to move with the exception of some gentle shifting for angles and things yeah it's a great weapon for staining or running or crouching or whatever it was fantastic for mobility there's some weird things with using shotguns in combat which is why this gun was limited to a very narrow role but more on that in a second so we we got through this or the ergonomics of a shotgun sure one about actually shooting the thing how's that going as just pull trigger pellets come out lining up my site guys it is just a standard bead sight like any shotgun I'm pretty much just point shooting you're just looking for the bead lining in on your target and firing from there the trigger on this one is a wonderful single stage trigger it's very clean very crisp very smooth pull through absolutely love it a few pounds of weight not really much to it I would say recoil starts to get a little bit much because I'm not shooting birdshot out of it which is what I'm actually used to with these shotguns so not only am I used to a much lighter recoil it's also something that I'm used to on a much longer gun so this gun likes to climb a little bit it's got more recoil than what I'm just normally expecting but double-aught buck I would argue is very manageable it's just when I'm it's not what I'm used to shooting all the time it's gonna be a different feel I would put in the same rough category as like a birthday a carbine pretty severe but not not on controllable whitey means I would agree but it's not too bad but yeah shooting was a very pleasant experience with this guy I had a heck of a lot of fun the only thing I would want to make sure I added though it's it's a different sensation I definitely wanted to bring it back to this heat shield up here because this thing is fantastic I was able to shoot this gun like dozens of rounds downrange without ever feeling really any heat from it and it's pretty great especially if I want to attach something special to the front okay let me give you that let's see here let's try it out no we should have actually done slamfire with this on here that's true and we should talk about that in just a second but first I want you guys to see this let me I'm in the better position to show it for a second tell me there is not a weapon that looks like it is more dripping with malicious intent than this particular configuration so what is a heat shield white so it is absolutely phenomenal this heat shield are truly thought first handed it that it was gonna bite into my fingers because it looks not only just looks menacing but on top of that it kind of looks like oh yeah it does kind of strike cheesegrater for the thought there but it's surprisingly not bright it doesn't dig into your fingers weird provides some nice I would guess just say really good texture to grip against and honestly that's perfect for the stabby fits I was worried coming off the remington model ten trench which is actually behind you it has a wood handguard i was actually worried that the steel handguard would be more slick and wet conditions and things like that but those ventilation holes which are designed to help cool it to keep that surface cool while the barrel heats up then actually give you quite a bit of traction and I think it's wonderful and then on top of that this felt way more stable than that model Tim because this heat shield is riveted into the bayonet lug which is drilled on but not drilled but it's got screws that it screwed with three massive screws right here onto the front of the gun so everything about the front of this attached to the top of the magazine well like all of this feel so much more stable yeah so what's going on is on the remington model 10 behind you it has a bayonet log mount that is uses like a blind pin and a screw this uses three side screws already very firmly held but then on that gun the bayonet lug is totally separate and then the actual handguard is held at the front and rear by two metal clips and they're not spring clips like on those sort of reproduction style we had to build but on the originals it's like a quarter inch or less it's it's like they need them an inch of sheet steel underneath the lip underneath another lip at the front and rear and the problem is under like extreme torque it's very easy to sort of rip that out and bend that and that's why most of those hand guards are missing also it's steel riveted to wood so you have another rivet points you have multiple connection points right is right this is steel riveted the steel bolted to the thing and you're done and the way it's bolted to the thing it also ties in the front and the magazine tube like you said so that you get this sort of both the barrel and the magazine tube are adding to the rigidity they're tied together very securely this is the most secure shotgun band log I can imagine it's why it's the one that stood the test of time it's incredibly stable in it no point did I feel any sort of widow coming from this guy so bayonet fighting feels good on this platform oh it's fantastic I wish we had taken time for me at the range to kind of get a little practice on that target but I mean I did tear it up pretty good okay so I think that's getting us into sort of what we're talking about with slamfire let me get this back from you so that we can not accidentally have a negligent poke so he's easier to get them on than off all right let me get this back to you we need your opinion on slamfire because this is something people are very curious about it comes up a lot so this gun doesn't have an interrupter which means every time I pump forward as long as I'm holding that trigger down it's going to discharge the next round which is fantastic and theory we do actually have a little clip of that I did want to make sure we share it with you guys take a couple tries to get you that fast on it because it's not thing you like to do but before holing before you go into that I want to say we did not do that on the Remington Model 10 and we explained at the time but I wanna be clear it's not because it can't do it it's because that gun being a takedown gun that that sort of see your engagement is separating and you would pump forward and they'd be like well nothing boom and so there was a delay almost like a hang fire and that was too dangerous to be doing it a legitimate slam fire with because we'd end up with weird out of battery issues so we did not do slam fire on that gun because mechanically it is aged out it cannot do it this has a fixed frame it's less likely to have those walkouts and therefore did not suffer that problem right and runs slam fire all day so point for the fixed frame but I'm sorry go back and give us your impression of slam fire but truly it was don't get me wrong it's just a shooter any old day I thought it was fun as heck but not really practical is what it boils down to you because you have to be able to pull it down to realign it every single time and that recoil is so significant that I find myself actually ended up dragging down as much as I could on this for and in order to bring it down from the recoil every single time just to line it back up with my target again and as a result I really didn't get as much on target with that as I would have liked I mean we did just do a test quick to see but it wasn't as it's not a practical use of it and it just doesn't really come in handy that often I would think in battle no I will say that I am the kind of jackass that is practice slamfire another 97 and other early shotguns it's probably good I'm pretty good with Slam fire like it's it's one of my few talents but I also have a lot of mass to throw out the problem this is true so I need to get bigger I still don't know that I would ever use it in a fight because as much as I'm good at it and I practice it I know there's a it's a to mode thing like I switched to slam fire mode and I do a slam fire and then I go back to using a shotgun like a normal person and I don't think that in an emergency I'm gonna go oh crap and just hold the trigger and pump and expect the pump to be the because all of my training in tort in terms of defensive shooting and things like that for myself is a choir trigger a choir trigger and so I don't think I'm going to be able to create a separate category for not actually using trigger because that's what happens in slamfire you're just death gripping the trigger but all of you know your instinct in a fight is going to be engaged trigger a release trigger engage triggering release trigger unless you're some guy that runs machine guns all the time that's true no matter what a shotgun sound everyone pretty much recognizes that sound so I'm going somewhere with this I understand that it's gonna sound terrifying but I you know the only thing I could say for the pro for that is on the receiving end of a slam just coming at you know three guys were shoot at you yeah you really would yeah I guess it is kind of like the Enfield mad minute like it's just there's a lot of noise but I think that extra stat extra moment of actually using the trigger is probably worth it it's a great fun you're making a lot of noise and sending a lot of we're ignite parts fun so while we're talking about it let's talk about effectiveness of buckshot itself so we had a 25 yard target which you guys saw in the demonstration and honestly we got rained out and some of our equipment even got damaged that day but we went ahead and without really filming we just pushed the target back out kept you in the same spot and then let you take another six rounds at another target so let's take a look at that damage and I think you guys are starting to see sort of you can picture in your mind the kind of cone you're getting from this double-aught buckshot no there's a big argument online all the time armchair wise about the effectiveness of buckshot and I don't want to get into how big or small of a cone at different places because the thing is it depends where you're standing where they're standing length the barrel the type of ammunition use the type of wad used it's really variable and what the 25 yard target you can clearly see it was pretty well nailing the one target oh now I feel confident $25.00 absolutely and I think it's possible it would have sprayed onto a second target but that's it that's the max is hitting at 25 yards you're basically do 225 pretty much I can't really see it hitting more than one and successfully downing them because that's the thing that's that's what this is supposed to do it's supposed to down the guy you're shooting at yeah at fifty yards you're starting to look at maybe you're hitting one than a half dudes I think maybe but the problem is is that the spray with that at that point is it gonna drop on you might hit them it's not really gonna probably drop them at that range yeah again though you're getting that scatter method of we're starting the only the only real comparable thing to this would be like a submachine gun in 32 ACP right it's kind of a weird compared but ballistically that's sort of where we're at and then you get out to 100 yards and studies at the time with the government and even modern studies and even youtubers have gone out and done this always fine that a hundred yards with double-up buck nine pellet they get out to 100 yards they have trouble hitting a block of ballistics gel this baby didn't you tell me that somebody successfully managed to do it like one out of nine times or something like it takes a number of shots to get a representative book pellet into that so you're not even hitting a target this big at 100 yards reliably and then you hit it and you get say eight inches of penetration on ballistics gel which is not as impressive as it sounds because most pistol calibers are delivering better than that or at least that you know we're really comparable of 32 ACP now because it's like shooting 32 acp at a hundred yards you know and it's just it's not doing what even like government agencies would be considered acceptable damage at a hundred yards and in that regard the German completes kind of making sense because at that point you are wounding people so you're shooting that guy's a hundred yards plus away you're doing more wounding than killing and you're also not really hitting the guy you're aiming at you're hitting around him and whoever else happens i mean ii maybe it's possible you might actually hit five germans but god only knows you know what's it gonna do there is a possible value that to you it's just at a hundred yards hit and a line of advancing guys that have me like oh and getting wounded and so like there's there's value there it's just it's not the kind of thing that we usually think of in terms of like actual combat effectiveness and so that means that this is a sub 100-yard gun ideally in that 50 yard ranger below and on World War 1 battlefields that makes it don't get me wrong mostly combat was very close not all and the problem is you're foregoing like a 1917 bolt-action rifle is deadly effective at multiple hundreds of yards right and it's deadly effective at 30 feet so effectively you're saying it's useful both action will be useful in all terrain all ranges well yeah it's now when you get up into like three feet and it's just a maneuverability problem that's when you need a carbine but still a bolt-action military right the thing that this is good at that it's truly good at is a knockdown power if somebody gets hit with that that you know eight out of nine of those and they are so hard down that you are unlikely to have that thing works like they get shot through the collarbone or something and they go they go down but then they have a pistol or with there's none of that like that guy might shoot me in the back as I jump over his body right nice pretty like it close range yeah and then the other advantage to this is the area of effect of the spray and I know people don't like this especially modern now it's been this big drive away from the defensive shotgun because there's that whole thing is like you don't even gotta aim it and it's just like yeah you do have to aim it but notice this does not have a rear sight you don't have to aim it nearly as accurately as a rifle because let's say that your shotguns spread only becomes this big just a couple inches trailer all right we're still like thirty times bigger than the area effect of a single you it doesn't seem like a lot but that's adding a significant statistic advantage to getting a hit well just think about how many shots of pellet went through that that space as opposed to how many hits from a rifle would take to fill it and how much mass to it is dangerous I'm not saying you just get to spray and pray but it is a much more dangerous thing to have a circle this big or this bigger whatever is flying through the air then I have a circle that big flying through the air I agree now it also has some advantages to being less threatening to somebody who is a hundred yards away so in case you're in a position where you've got men on the other side of the enemy also some advantage there because again like the being able to defend buildings and not tear up a neighborhood or accidentally shoot somebody through the wind over their house they're very good for in combat for not shooting beyond where you want to shoot this is true and then the big thing that the government really liked about these that the army and the men really sort of gave them the gold star on was at night the ability to hear a noise 50 meters distant point at the sound of it and just go boom boom boom boom boom and a spread it is just fantastic for that kind of night point shoot we're just you rock and go if you know what fifty yards or so you've got a spread like this then you know that you heard a sound in that direction with six rounds think of the area of effect that you can have especially if you generally know where the ground is so you can just spray this big old area real quick at night knowing it's not one of your guys because they're not speaking back to you in English like it's like you hear something you call out you get nothing back you get German back and you just and you hear somebody cry out and you're like there it was yous over there let's go get them I mean it's silly but that is an effective use of this especially because the ability for them to return fire is very very low because it is dark out all you have to do is you're maneuverable you're short on the barrel length and everything you pump your shots you step aside and then they've got to find you with a pistol or a rifle in the dark which is god only knows that they're capable of that but as a night fighting weapon I can't say absolutely agree that's perfect for patrol for night patrol so I guess that gets us into a point of would you take this into battle or not so pitch-black night how're you feeling pitch-black night and I'm on patrol I need to just kind of point and shoot and you know hopefully hit something in the darkness yeah I'm definitely going to have this with me it is easy for a point-and-shoot I don't have to worry about actually lining up my sights and acquiring my target I can just hit it sound and the spray on its own will probably help at least if anything it might winged the guy if it doesn't knock them down and then on top of that terrifying to hear this thing going off of the night mm-hmm okay so open terrain hundred yards no okay now this is where it's gonna get tricky oh boy okay he's excited trench fighting on the attack okay so would you take a line with this and fight in a trench with it if I'm in the trench I'm running in the trench yeah actually I would take this in the church to me because if you think about it the only thing that would be I would consider better over this to take on the trench with me would be something like a submachine gun that would be great that'd be fantastic on the trigger point submachine gun does a better job than this Lee yeah don't get me wrong it does better but that's the only thing I would probably put above this when it comes to like maneuver maneuvering in a trench and fighting like that but still pretty good okay we're bliss in some pretty good conditions here so so far it's good at night good night wrench okay here's the big one would you take it in the battle if it were raining now why would you do that why would you introduce a terrible condition like that because you know that it's the Wicked Witch of the West and it's going to melt every regard the dry sectors said these guns were amazing at very limited roles and not even on the trench attacks because the idea of trying to get to the enemy trench with something like this means that you don't have the rifle with you to get up there so you're you're doing nothing effectively and if the guys around you are killed now you either scramble for their weapon or you're stuck where you are you need to get to the enemy to use this thing in a daylight that's almost impossible and then not only that dry conditions at that moment those paper cartridges get wet unfortunately that's where the issues just come into play because just they would you fire off one round maybe and then after that they're so gunked-up here inside the magazine tube or they're just swell don't forget guys it's not like you just take them in a ziplock bag and it's better that way right the guns get wet they build moisture and no Dew and stuff like that they the rough starts to pile up whatever material and mud and whatever gets into the action and then they had no real way to securely carry them because they weren't really equipped to actually carry the paper cartridges they have a cartridge bag like I said before so they put them in their pockets and they get rubbed together and dropped on and bent and broke and it's just reliably being able to grab and load the cartridge there's not a thing and then unfortunately the way they jammed up there's not a way to get them back out without dismantling the gun and then on top of that moment you get them out well if they've gotten wetter than any point you pretty much have to dry the whole gun inside out because the magazine tube itself can't hold me moisture then they'll just they'll get wet again and then you got to clean out the action right so you have to take log the fastest way you could do is take off the bayonet like take off the cap go in and shotgun brush that out and then that would get your mag back in make sure your shotgun brushes dry though and that wet condition you can't even really use it as a single loader because that seemed sort of paper due that starts to develop you've run a couple rounds like that to the chamber or the rounds are wet in your pocket they're not gonna fit the chamber either and you're gonna start jamming up on single shots if they didn't get wet like you were saying before those cartridges weren't the most resilient on their own so even in dry conditions and they were just sitting in your pocket banging around or getting rubbed up against they could to easily just bend or break even and even in dry weather there is no rapid loading system it's still a singular load so we're back yet I mean this thing loads is slow as a Lebel which you were very upset about yeah unfortunately that was another sad one there now you get a lot more pellets for your one load that's true there's a lot more stopping power with that potential there I think what we're winding down to is that the shotgun gets an emphatic yes for night patrolling and dry night Patrol thank you very much and if you just woke up one day already in a trench fight okay but the problem is getting to and from the trench fight and also what conditions which were absolutely white conditions on the front now they did try to come out with high brass shells as far as I know they never made it to the frontlines in time the armistice was declared so that might have changed the history but the same problems turned up in World War two right and I have not done a ton of research into the World War two operation of the trench guns if they're like guys this is still a problem right so the problem is overall shotguns always fill a specialty role and you're looking for Universal weapon so while we both love this gun and have a lot of confidence in it in this one weird way it's unfortunately gonna have to get a note from both of us yeah I'm at they agree I I love the gun and it hurts it hurts deep in my soul because if I take this and I show it to you I'm gonna tell you if you're familiar with like something like a fantasy series like Star Trek and the Klingon what they're bat'leth and it's the big curvy blade you just you just no bat'leth goes with Klingon you can't see one without thinking of the other because it's just that that mental image of something so associated with a group of people true I don't know that there is a more American looking weapon from World War one that is quite this is the most American thing the Springfield 1903 German Mauser the 1917 German Mauser through the British interpretation at least we know who to steal stuff from for ideas yeah that's true now that 1911 handgun also American big semiautomatic handgun also very identifiable but the problem is you show it to other powers and they go yeah we got something like that we got the FN 1903 we got what they've seen stuff like it nobody had anything that looked like this except for America this is the American gun and so there's a lot of love for it in that regard but it doesn't mean that it worked for all occasions yeah alright so I think that's got it while you want inside carrying the battle would you like to own one would you ever sell it if you own that one are you kidding me of course I would never sell it it'd be my own personal shotgun that I can shoot modern shells out of yeah I'm gonna have a ton of fun with this guy I don't think that it is a practical use in the war per se especially at that time with the paper cartridges but me personally as a collector and shooter oh yeah these are tons of fun nice trim you can cheap modern birdshot feeds through it just fine and it's a way to enjoy something of this age and it may not be practical but I love slamfire [Laughter] alright so I think that's guys wrapped up updates are after the credits y'all have a good one night guys [Music] alright guys I hope you enjoyed that classic Winchester episode but I have a classic Winchester now it's been a while ago we did the 1895 episode as it served in Russia and it's part of that I had advanced knowledge of this book that is now available this is winchester model 1895 lasted the classic lever actions by Rob Kasab and Brad Dunbar this is available now new a lot of you who deal with research books know these are printed in smaller volume or smaller numbers they almost always triple or double their value over the next 10 years because not enough people buy them and there's more interest later these things are worth their weight in gold in terms of information and I want to be very clear the person who usually buys this as someone who already owns in 1895 next behind that is someone who wants to buy an 1895 and wants to be sure of what they're doing that is the smartest person in this whole story by the way always get the book before the gun then you know people are just generally interested in these as reference books which is also good and then behind that there are people who are actually entertained by consuming a ton of my new details about a particular firearm you are probably one of those people if you're watching this because not only do you watch primer episodes you're watching them to the end to see the updates about the primer episodes you if you are listening to this are the kind of person who will enjoy this book and you'll join more because frankly I don't normally do book reviews this has some of the best visual layout I have ever seen original documents of regional cartridge boxes letters things like that all the stuff you usually don't get your hands on because it's been processed into the book in such a way that it's been removed they've laid it all in here almost like a story of the research itself it's fantastic I appreciate this on two separate levels one as a researcher and two as someone who's interested in the guns so if you'd like a tour of what it's like to sort of do all this by all means grab a copy of this try it out maybe it's the first book that you've really gotten into of this scale see how you like it if you don't okay don't buy any more but but this one's a good one to start on in terms of getting a really tight story now on a more macro sense I would like to sort of challenge you guys we had that symposium out in Wyoming that some of you had seen the videos with Ian and we talked a lot about how to integrate museums in new media and the whole time I was also thinking about researchers in new media and I'm the new media which is very odd to think of because I think I'm pretty boring but I need a way to convey authors to you guys and researchers to you guys that goes above and beyond just book reviews like you've seen I need a way to help you understand the value of these guys and how much work they're really doing if you have ideas on that matter please by all means let me know but on the sort of front end of it I'm really considering sort of an amalgamated collector site that will display videos with equal weight to book releases and things like that I've got a little alpha version hidden away if you can find it but once that's ready I think I'm gonna announce it and let you guys try it out if it works it works if it doesn't it doesn't but I don't want to be the kind of person who didn't try to bring the people who are doing the hard work right up to the front of the line so on that note I'm gonna have to just let it go check out the book keep eye out for me to start making some announcements have a good one

Channel: C&Rsenal

Views: 973,115

Rating: 4.868865 out of 5

Keywords: WWI, History, greatwar, bf1, battlefield1, worldwar1

Id: oROttbSkayU

Length: 92min 49sec (5569 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 23 2019