The Model 50 might be an interesting design and beautifully made, but they sure seem very butt heavy and poorly balanced. Maybe thats why they didnt sell so great and used ones are fairly inexpensive now....
One man's heavy butt is another man's lively barrel.
I do agree though, balance is not their strong suit.
They did, however, sell pretty well for the times. Butler claims over 190k during their roughly 6 year run. That compares fairly well to the Remington 58 (which was a mess reliability wise) and the then still in production 11-48.
None of these were much of a threat to the A5.
Anything 'Winchester' was stupid expensive to produce and the gun was dropped more due to profit margin than sales. I can't imagine what a 'floating chamber' cost to machine.
My '50' is a custom job put together by a late friend. It was his idea of the perfect shotgun. It's a novel 'blast from the past'.
The older I get the more I appreciate the 'time machine' aspect of the shooting hobby. It even looks from the scuttlebutt on the web that I stand about an even chance to acquire a 'surplus' 1911 from the CMP project. That will be a fun one too.
