The 1897 Winchester Trench Gun
Americans live in a shotgun culture and we have long brought them with us when heading to war. Without argument, one of the most popular shotguns ever built in the United States was the 1897 Winchester and this work horse got called to serve in not only both World Wars, but in Korea and Vietnam as well.
The Winchester Company of New Haven, Connecticut, first breathed life into their 1897 model shotgun through a modernization of its 1893 series pump gun. Both were designed by firearms legend John Moses Browning. The gun was light and handy, at 7-pounds, and it was sold in a slew of variants with barrels ranging anywhere from 20-30.” One of the first pump action shotguns capable of shooting the then-new 2.75-inch smokeless powder shells, it was an instant hit at $25.
Users carried five shells of buckshot in the magazine tube and one in the chamber. Better yet it could be slam fired as fast as the pump could be worked, unloading 54 balls of 00 buckshot in about five seconds. The Army, needing some bad medicine to deal with Muslim insurgents in the Philippines and Mexican bandits on the border, bought several small batches of riot guns with the 20? barrel as early as 1900. When World War 1 erupted and the US found itself in the worst of it in 1917, again they found they needed more shotguns; like 20,000 more.
Little did they know these guns would still be in use in Vietnam fifty years later.
Read the rest in my column at GUNS.com
