doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com So, how strong are NID's?

Back at the ranch....
Yes it's stamped a 2-3/4" chambered gun and actually measures a pinch more. I probably shoot 2-3 boxes a year through it, I should be good.

I thought the Mag 10 was built specifically at Olin's request for the larger shells?

As I recall, there were no actual catastrophic failures - rather, a failure was when the gun would not function correctly.

This was not a very hig dollar test. I have always wondered why the competition didn't rerun it. Certainly Remington had the wherewithall to do it!!

Per the value of strong lock-up, Greener (?) showed fairly clearly that there was minimul force trying to open the gun. I recall that he removed the bolts and fired a gun held shut with finger pressure. So, why all the issue with who has the strongest locking? Seems to me that durability of the hook/hinge pin is a much bigger issue, not to mention springs, firing pins, hammers, triggers, etc. Or, did I miss something?

The Magnum-Ten NID takes an idea from the Model 21 in its much longer frame then the standard NID. The magnum frame NID also has a larger diameter hinge pin and the lug extension through the bottom of the frame. It has always been interesting that the Olins went to Ithaca to build a gun for their 3 1/2 inch ten gauge shell. I wonder when that request was actually made and the plan hatched. The Magnum-Ten first appears in the 1932 Ithaca catalogue. Was the plan made with Ithaca before the Olins bought the defunct Winchester Repeating Arms Co.? Why didn't they just build a Magnum-Ten Model 21?? Western Cartridge Co. did have a track record of working with double gun manufacturers with the original developement of the Super-X and the Super-Fox gun to handle those shells a decade earlier.

The M21 stock failed after 15 rounds but they kept shooting proof loads for 2000 rounds. Tell me, why does it matter that it went 2000 rounds if the stock failed after 15. In the write-up I have (Stadt, 1995) it says:"L.C. Smith: no data available. It is known that after testing, the L.C. Smith was unserviceable and unsafe" (Wonder if that means the stock cracked? They were very clear about what failed on the other models. Note that they kept shooting the 21 after its stock broke, rendering IT unserviceable and unsafe!)
"Fox: daylight visible at face of breech after six rounds; draw in bolt gone after 50 rounds; gun started to blow open after 60 rounds; testing discontinued after 80."
"Ithaca: daylight visible at face of breech after three rounds; draw in bolt gone and buttstock cracked after 10 rounds; action seized and testing discontinued after 56 rounds."
"Parker: daylight visible at face of breech after 10 rounds; left side of frame cracking after 26 rounds; forearm wood split at 275 rounds; buttstock split at 300 rounds; daylight at breech too great for firing after 305."

I should think that the L.C. failure would have been noted if it were metal or action related. That's why I suspect it was the stock. Note that the M21 stock failed before some of the others. This test was pure marketing malarky. mike

Well, I'll take some heat on this but Sherman Bell's tests are also malarkey. They're 'better than nothing', perhaps, but anyone with any knowledge of testing and statistics would know that his tests are too uncontrolled and have too small a sample group to be meaningful.


It's like the guy who feels an elephant's tail and describes an elephant as long and stringy at the end.

Discounting the broken stocks which are a different level of failure that metal failures, looks to me like the issue was that guns got knocked off face and then the locking bolts were trying to carry the whole load - a job for which they are not suited. There doesn't seem to be any indication that the M-21 came off face. Wonder why?? Is the M-21 action strong and durable? Yes! Is the whole gun somehow extra strong? No - same stock problems as others and the same barrel/rib solder problems. Again, looks to me like at least one of the competition would have run a refutation if the test was entirely bogus.

I think by the time the M21 test was conducted all of the double barrel gun companies were on hard times and they had bigger fish to fry than worrying about a competitor's test. The M21 came along very late in the game...it had better be stronger.

No heat from me, just an observation. Sherman Bell himself points out that his data is not exhaustive, it is just the results of that test on that particular gun. His work remains the best that we have because doing destructive testing on a large sample of a limited resource isn't possible.

I think Sherman realizes that much of his experimentation is "just funnin'". If someone, maybe Sherman, would take on the replay of the Model 21 destruction test, somehow the stocks could be taken out of the equation by the use of a simple padded cradle. Mr. Researcher, I think we solved the riddle of the John Olin/Winchester Repeating Arms/Ithaca timetable just a few months ago. I just can't remember what we decided. It seems to me that we figured that Olin had made the Ithaca deal before the Olins were issued Winchester keys. The events were pretty close together, but it takes a while before the new owners reach a backslapping relationship with the prototype shop. The Lovely Linda's late husband built a working Vxxxxx (Yes, one of those) while in charge of the instrument shop at NIH, but not under the direction of anyone that came on board the day before.

Chuck;
I would really not call the bbl wall thickness etc of the 21 as being "Over engineered". As to the underbolt as applied on the 21 it does absolutely nothing except latch the bbls to the frame. Properly fitted rotary bolts, Greener Cross bolts as well as doll's heads help absorb axial thrust at the top of the frame where they aid in resisting "Bending" at the juncture of bar & breech. No underbolt does this. The forward lug face of the rear lug on a dbl under bolted gun can (and does on many designs) hook into the frame cross member & assist the hinge pin in taking axial thrust, but still doesn't give the top connection. Virtually all well designed guns are designed with adequate frame strength to stand up to normal loads without the top connection. It should not be too hard to understand though as loads are increased above normal an efficient top connection will keep the frame from bending & finally cracking longer than the same frame without one.
8-bore, of course a tight fitting doll's head provides resistance against this frame bending. The fact that a Parker frame is amply strong for all normal use without it, has little bearing upon the fact that it would come into play in such a test as this. No doubt Winchester engineers were aware of this fact even if you don't seem to be. It is my understanding a Trojan was used for the test.
I still see absolutely nothing about it I would refer to as Over-Engineered, just a normally constructed gun made of modern materials.