Tag Archives: 1897 Trench gun

Old school master key

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12-gauge-winchester-model-1897-shotgun-this-pump-action-smoothbore-was-reportedly-utilized-by-a-florida-police-department-as-an-entry-weapon-for-raidsHere 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.

The 1897 Winchester Trench Gun

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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

1897 in vietnam