Acquired an Ithaca NID a coupla years ago. I related the tale of the purchase on this forum. And to paraphrase Paul Harvey; "and now, the rest of the story."
My sons and I shoot in a winter trap league up here in Minnesota.....Yeah, it's cold sometimes. My 26 year-old claimed the NID for himself shortly after I bought it. He's kinda husky, and has a round face; the dims. on the old NID fit him perfectly. Matter of fact he broke his first 25 straight, registered targets with it.
Serial no. range 4309xx. It's from the cocking indicator era. Halfway through the winter league, we noticed the top lever was bending to the left! And I mean real bent.......About a forty five degree bend. Seems when the young fella would extract a shell, and reload at the next station, he would snap the gun closed like the Citori shooter next to him......Kinda flashy! Well, I guess the inertia of snapping the action closed, and the fact that the toplever was never hardened properly at the Ithaca factory, and the lever ahead of the thumb piece was extremely thin, and the thumb pad was large and heavy, was causing the lever to bend to the left in a semi-circle. We bent it back straight a few times; but worried about how many times we could do that without it breaking off!
After one night shoot, we decided to give the old gun a good cleaning, and inspection, prior to dismantling the action and sending the toplever to someone to have it re-hardened.
Well, sh**! Here we discovered the left barrel was separted from the ribs, at the muzzle for about 18 inches! Could easily spring it apart over an eighth of an inch! And examining it closely revealed a real poor solder job.....hardly tinned, and just the slimmest little partial line of solder....... And this supposedly, from the height of Ithaca craftsmanship.....
(By the way, that 'ringing the barrels' B.S. is worthless.... These rang like the "Bells of St. Marys" in the gunshop, prior to purchase......)
So.....Mr Merrington will fix 'er up for around a grand.... That makes me feel real warm inside......I only paid 6 bills for it!
Got several old "cornsheller" Model 12 traps........The young guy can slam them shut after reloading, all he wants.... Ain't gonna' hurt nothin'.
So I now have another "closet queen" to rile the old lady with.
Any prospective NID buyers out there....Be careful! Look it over very well, and don't figure on shooting it much.......
Let the flames begin.........! Grant.
