doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Winchester 21 assembly / general questions

yes it is Don but someone carved out the comb and added a piece of wood in there....it looks like a dogs breakfast so I would like to find a better one

CJ

I am sorry if I pissed people off, but I now believe my
1901 W W Greener Hammer is arguably the best Gun in the world
And, yes,I am over & above myself Moody Cowboy
franc

Franc;
I won't even disagree with you on that observation. That Greener just may well be the Best Gun in the World.

Even though I like my Greeners, Francottes, Lindners, Parkers, Lefevers, and some others better than the 21s, I still can't find anything bad to say about the 21s. I guess my favorites for mechanical innovation are the Lefevers. My real disappointment about the 21 is that Olin never made it in ten or eight gauge.

Well, Bill, at that point in time, and later for that matter, with Olins advances it shot shell technology, there was not much need for the 10 and 8. The 3" 12 pretty much put them to bed.

You hear it all the time, on Skeet and Trap fields, Sporting Clays courses and in the field,

"... Hey, is that a Francotte?"

Cartod;
One reason I have not convinced you of that is that I have not tried to & have no intention of doing so. When Win was designing the 21 they wanted to fill a gap in their lineup. They wanted to produce a double which could be sold at a reasonable price & be as compatible with modern (for that time) machine production techniques as possible. In this they were extremely successful. They no doubt would have sold a lot more of them had not the single bbl repeaters (many of their own make) already been in the process of ending the heyday of the Douublegun in the US. Perhaps when I used the term Mediocre for the design I didn't really express that well. I wasn't really trying to say anything was necessarily a Bad design. Just that most every feature had already been in use for virtually a half century. Perhaps Average design would have been more appropriate than mediocre.
The 21 was certainly not the first double to use a coil spring action nor a round underbolt. Personally I think the Purdey double bolt is a superior design. Once previously I even had one poster try to convince me the 21 was the first double ever to have a bbl check/stop (this wasn't 8-Bore, he's a lot smarter than that).
Bottom line is I have no problem at all with the statement the 21 is "Among the finest in the World". It does have a lot of company though, its a big crowd its Among.

"M21 took great attributes of other fine doubles of the time and improved upon them"
Be happy to discuss all those attributes you feel were "Improved" in the M21.

I'm thinking that for the rest of us to decide whether or not the Model 21 is the 'Best' we would need a whole bunch of pics of other people's Model 21's!!!!

2-Piper:

"Personally I think the Purdey double bolt is a superior design."

Care to elaborate? The three guns I have come across with round underbolts are the Mod21, Horsley and a Belgian Darry. The underbolts were in the 9mm diameter range, offering 60 square mm against shear forces. The Purdey underbolt offers slightly less cross sectional area in most English style guns.

Additionally the round bolt seems easier to drill, fit and finish at the manufacturing and repair phases.

The single selective trigger

The strength/reliability/metallurgy/safety

The fore end design

The Chokes

The ease of enterchangable barrels