Researcher: Thankyou for that! Bottom-dumpers used to concern me as well (I'd probably heard the some of same stories your dad was listening to), but only until I'd owned and then used a couple of them. As a Southpaw, they offer some serious advantages and very-few (if ever) any detriments to us right-hand challenged folks.
At the risk of preaching to the choir here, when properly cleaned-up and then tuned-up, pumpers are simply great and affordable tools. IMHO, the pre-WWII variants generally offer immense value for the price paid (in terms of build-quality and function) and they always seem to get my attention (even if I prefer doubles to hunt with). Almost everybody shot one in the world of my youth, and many shot them very well. My grandfather's generation seemed to treasure the doubles more, and only after being exposed to some better variants of those weapons did I finally abandon the pumps. Being of a frugal nature, I re-discovered them again in middle age as my search for the perfect upland gun became more-serious. I acquired several (many!) and cleaned them up to better understand them (there weren't any books on the subject then, and likely still aren't). I quickly found that after a proper clean-up and a little finish repair, I could re-sell locally with little trouble and be well paid for my work. Many of them went in that fashion to help me build a war-chest to afford some of my first truly-decent doubles. Now I find that I'm a bit sorry that I don't have some of them anymore, my old, two-barreled M17 being one of them.
Last edited by Lloyd3; 02/18/22 05:55 PM.