No......it's not an AR or a retro Savage but......

I'm working on Dad's old Winchester 97 riot gun. I read the retro shotgun thread on here a while ago and figured I would reach out to everyone for some input on my situation.

Gun:
Winchester 97 pump shotgun, 12ga.
The gun has US markings, flaming bombs on the receiver and barrel. It's original blue in about 95% condition, possibly better. Really a beautiful piece. Barrel has CYL Bore marking. Barrel is notched for the bayo mount, but has never had a bayo mount on it. It's a takedown model.

Issues:
At some point someone had a hi-vis bead sight installed on the barrel. BLAH.
At some point the stock was drilled on the side and had a sling swivel installed. See BLAH above.
At some point there was a sling mount brazed to the mag tube's right side up front, DIRECTLY where the mag clamp shound be. Effin-blah, bigtime.
At some point someone installed non-takedown mag tube plug in the end of the tube.

Now......the situation.
Dad got this used a long time ago ( back when they were a dime a dozen ) and dropped it off at a "gun smith" to have a sling mount put on the front and the sight. If you're familiar with the Winchester takedowns, the mag tube is threaded partially and smooth where it goes into the receiver. You push the tube in and turn it a quarter turn to get it to lock in. The sling swivel was installed at the wrong location and interferes with the tube installing correctly now. Because the threads only lock up with a quarter turn, the tube has to be installed a certain way, then tightened. The problem right now is that the tube is 180 degrees out. This makes for a gap in the joint inside where the feed tube and receiver should be seamless. The sling swivel hits the barrel if you try and install it the correct way. The mag clamp has small screws that are supposed to key into notches machined into the underside of the barrel. This cannot happen, as the sling thing is in the way, forcing the clamp to be installed at the wrong location and not tightened correctly.

This is Dad's shotgun and not mine. If it were mine, I would like to see it go back to it's correct config. He wanted a sling, recoil pad and sight and such, so I have to work with that.

Here is what I would like.
I'd like to get the correct parts to fix the mag plug, replacing the fixed model pluf with the correct one with the sliding latch. No big issue there.
I dont see replacing the stock yet, as it's clean and we can either leave the sling mount on it or perhaps remove it and fill the hole.
The front sight????? I guess it should stay because Dad wanted something easily seen. It can always be removed and replaced with a bead.

The reason for this thread???
I need ideas for a front sling mount for this gun. I've read/seen pictures of a front mag clamp with a sling stud/mount on it but it seems it's a VERY rare piece. If I can replicate this piece, I can remove the one on the tube and get it to seat fully into the receiver and be correct, not hanging up shells as they feed past the joint. I thought about finding a new tube, but the condition of his is good if I get rid of the sling thing and have it re-blued. It's a clean piece besides where they brazed the sling thing on. I'm thinking that can be cleaned up and saved.

Thought......what about taking a replacement ( I don't want to screw with the original ) mag clamp and adding a sling stud to it? Any ideas on how that wouldn't look like holy hell??

or.......

Any other ideas??

I gave the gun back to Dad, but I'll get it back when I have a plan. I can get pictures then, but I think you have the idea.

Wow, that was a lot to read.
So what you're basically asking is another way to mount a sling on the front end of the gun?
I have have thought about doing this on my '97 takedown as well. What I would do is take the cap off the end of the magazine tube ( I think you have to take out that little retracting lever first ) and drill and tap the front end of it to take whatever type of sling swivel you want to mount up on it.
Pictures in a few minutes....





ETA - Basically take part #15497 in the picture and drill and tap the end.

ETA AGAIN - Numerich sells reproduction mag tubes for $77.15 - http://www.e-gunparts.com/DisplayAd.asp?chrProductSKU=251770&chrSuperSKU=&MC=



 

Not a bad idea. Similar to the Remington cap sling studs.

Keep the ideas coming!!

Anyone see the repro tube from GPC ? I wonder how the finish is?

I removed this clamp when I restored my 97 riot model about 20 years ago.  You can clearly see the detachable sling stud.

That's one of the pictures in my head.

What are you doing with that one? Do you still have it or did you just save a picture of it because it was an abomination?

You could also take something like this:






and cut off the screw mounting ears and weld it on to the bottom of the clamp, might look a little nicer than a standard swivel stud.
Numrich as markets a repro bayonet mount/heat that will work on a takedown model

I don't know why I didn't think of this earlier. Just turn your mag tube cap







You can rotate the cap that has the lever on it 180 degrees, that should solve your problem......I think.

 

Issue #47........

......how to convince Dad that he needs a bayo mount and heat shield.

I'm diggin it.

The current sling mount is brazed onto the tube. It makes it so you cannot get the threads lined up at the correct clock position because it hits the barrel. It's got to go.
Right now you slip the tube in with the sling thing at 6-oclock and turn it to 9-oclock. Because the threads are stepped, it is not keying in correctly to fully seat when tightened. If the sling thing was to be at 12 and turned to 3 , the gap would be gone. Sling thing will not allow this. It must die.

When the original hack that brazed it on tried to install the tube, they forced it and pushed the threads into the tube. This made shells stick in the tube. They should have realized this but did not.

I fixed the feed problem and crushed threads, now to do away with the sling thing BUT replace it with an alternate mount somewhere.

damn....





 

 

If you want to remove the brazed "sling thing" here's how you do it.

Assuming that it is silver soldered on and not with regular brazing rod; but with hacks you never know.

Take a torch and gently heat the part you want to remove. keep most of the heat on the scrap part since it won't matter if you ruin that. When the silver solder melts the part will fall off. Keep the underlying metal hot and hit the area with a blast of compressed air from blow gun. This will blow away almost all of the molten solder. Gently file the remainder of the high spots with a fine file trying not to touch the steel. Finally glassbead the area to remove the thin remaining flash, it will blast off. Reblue or parkerize as desired.

My dad had a model '97 upstairs gathering dust that needed a new stock (where they always break) that he never used - I thought I'd inherit it someday, wanted to restore it for him so he'd have something around the house. He gave it to my stepbrother.

This.


or
keep good dad's gun as dad liked it and buy a repro or kicking around.

Hal

I still have it - PM sent

I had the same deal going on as you, I had my Dad's 97 and I was thinking of cuting the barrel off and turning it into a Trench Gun, thankfully I didn't.
It turns out a friend of mine had one and we made a trade.
The one my Dad bought new in 1956:

The one I traded for a few weeks ago, made in 1918:

This gun was also originally a Trench Gun when it was assembled, it has the right barrel stamps, the bayonet attachment cuts, and the right mag plug, but it never reached the Military, it was apparently sold to Law Enforcement instead,and used as a Riot Gun so it never received the U.S. Martial Markings. It's my understanding that the U.S. Martial Markings were not put on the guns until they reached the Military. It is still an original Trench Gun so I didn't feel bad about putting the bayonet attachment back on. In the pictures of the barrel bands I used my Dads(MY)97 as a comparison, a number of different barrel bands were used. Before WWI the 20" 97's were all considered Law Enforcement Type Riot Guns but anyone could buy one. The sling mounting piece on the early ones had a large band on the top around the barrel and a real small bottom half that just covered the centering pin. The one that was used on the 1918 was the same as the band on the one my Dad bought in 1956 but I don't think that means they all were.
here is the marks on the bottom of the barrel:

These are the correct measurement for the placement of the screw reliefs:

The barrel bands and the mag tube plugs:



The right "E" serial# range:

The buttstock on this one has an SPP 44, for possibly State Prison, State Police, Southern Pacific RR Police, I'm not sure:

I bought the heatshield bayonet piece from Numrich and I think it's very nice. I took some light abraisive to it to knock down some of the blue, but it was after I took the picture.

I'm very big on keeping military rifles in there military configuration.I would find Dad either a riot 97 or a nice modern shotgun,,and take the trench 97 and restore it...Just my 2 cents

We seem to be making headway. I emailed some pictures of complete trench guns to Dad after a conversation on the phone about the options that were flying around on this thread. His response was..........

"WOW !  I like that heat guard and bayo combo, it looks neat and baaaad ,I think I would like that on my gun.  What do you think ??? "

I think we're getting somewhere. I'll see when he answers the phone. I think he's too busy pumpin his porpoise lookin at the retro forum now, I sent him a link to here.

Pics and progress as it comes. Thanks for the help so far.

What holds the back end of the heat shield onto the barrel? Gravity??

Okay.
I finally got around to working on Dad's shotgun. Unfortunately, my new camera's battery was dead and I started the project before taking "before" pictures.

All and all I'm very happy with the way the mods came out. I added a Numrich Arms repro bayo mount w/heat shield and removed a sling thing that was brazed to the side of the mag tube.

I was going to use a repro mag tube, but decided to try and keep the original instead. I used some cold blue to spot repair where they had brazed the sling swivel onto the tube. It now looks almost like an oil spot because of the difference in how smooth the metal was. I guess I went a little too nuts trying to make the metal smooth, as the rest of the tube must have had more texture but I'm still happy with the results.

Overall the gun is in quite nice original condition ( the finish ) and the new part seems to blend in well. Thanks for all the help everyone. Dad's going to be real happy with the mean looking bastard.

What do y'all think??

Pictures are with an old camera, sorry.

Man that's nice.  Good job !

That turned out very nice, congrats!

2 sane,,,I'm damn proud of you.You brought a tear to my eyes by restoring to military configuration..Thank you.You should be proud of yourself on a real nice job,looks great.Enjoy it,they are getting very hard to come by...
So in closing,I SALUTE YOU SIR!!!!!!

Thanks for the kind words guys.

I got out to see Dad and delivered his shotgun back to him. He was quite happy with the results and confirmed that the gun looked "Bad" with the bayo mount and heat shield installed. He seemed happy with the repair as well.

Score one for the goodguys today and God does not have to kill another kitten.

I wanted to get a picture of him and his badass shotty, so I convinced him to strike a pose similar to my avitar!

The hardest part was getting him not to laugh.

He looks ready for business

Prior to looking at your avatar or reading your message just seeing the picture I thought "GET OFF MY LAWN."  LOL

So your picture works. Nice shotty BTW