Here we see a 12 gauge Winchester Model 1897 shotgun as modified for military service then subsequently whittled down sometime later. This pump-action smoothbore was reportedly utilized by a Florida police department as an entry weapon for raids and is currently in the collection of the National Firearms Museum.
The trench gun, likely passed on after World War II from military stores, is a really well done chop, with the brass buttplate being moved up to the end of the abbreviated stock.
As noted in Canfield’s excellent U.S. Infantry Weapons of World War II, some 20,000 M1917 Trench Guns were ordered during the Great War and as many as 48,000 subsequently modified ’97s during the second, all with the ventilated hand-guard, sling swivels and Enfeld bayonet adapter.
After 1945, with the Army purchasing upwards of 500,000 commercial shotguns of all kinds for training and constabulary use during the conflict, among the first surplused out was the Winchester trench brooms– making them exceedingly rare in original condition today.
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Let me introduce myself. I am a bit of a conflict junkie. I am fascinated by war and warfare, assassination, personal protection and weaponry ranging from spud guns and flame throwers to thermonuclear bombs and Soviet-trained Ebola monkeys. In short, if it’s violent or a tool to create violence it is kind of my thing.
I have written a few thousand articles on the dry encyclopedia side for such websites as GUNS.com, Univesity of Guns, Outdoor Hub, History Times, Big Game Hunter, Glock Forum, Firearms Talk.com, and Combat Forums; as well as for print publications like England Expects, and Strike First Strike Fast. Several magazines such as Sea Classics, Military Historian and Collector, Mississippi Sportsman and Warship International have carried my pieces. Additionally I am on staff as a naval consultant and writer for Eye Spy Intelligence Magazine.
Currently I am working on several book projects including an alternative history novel about the US-German War of 1916, and a biography of Southern gadfly and soldier of fortune Bennett Doty. My first novel, about the coming zombie apocalypse was released in 2012 by Necro Publications and can be found at Amazon.com as was the prequel, Chimera-44. I am currently working on book two of that series: "Pirates of the Zombie Coast."
In my day job I am a contractor for the US federal government in what could best be described as the ‘Force Protection’ field. In this I am an NRA-certified firearms, and less-than-lethal combat instructor.
