Another post in a thread here made me consider the pump gun in relationship to being a classic gun. The British did not invent the double gun from what I can find. I accept the British, to a large extent perfected the double gun, including side plate, box lock and hammer gun. They took each to just about the end of the line development wise. Inventors in the US did the same for the pump gun. I can not think of a single major non US made pump gun unless it is a modern, black/camo type gun or copies of older guns with the exceptions of a few Turkish made guns.
I have the normal examples, often seen like, Mossberg's, Winchester 97's, 12 & 42's, Remington's and Ithaca's. I also like the examples not often seen like the Steven/Savage Browning designs, Smith % Wesson 3000, Mossberg 200K, Marlin's 1898, 19, 31-20, 44-20, 43-12, High Standard's, Noble's, Spencer's and Toledo Arms. I still am looking for a decent, safe to shoot, examples of several other early guns. Rare and old can get expensive or just very hard to find.
Some of the early examples were dead ends and when you use one you can see why. The Toledo Arms 20 gauge I shoot is a well made gun, with Krupp steel barrel, but operating it is very hard to do. With no hammer it is a striker firing system. All the cocking effort is in the last 1/2" of the slide operation and it is almost impossible to do with the gun mounted to your shoulder. Being a striker gun, with no hammer, you get no mechanical advantage in cocking it. Compressing the spring takes a lot of effort. Plus the action design itself is a bit of a flop down here, then flop back there type operation. Dirt was a real problem in rough use I am sure.
Another interesting design was the Marlin hammer-less guns. The Hammer-less design went through several revisions. I like the lines of the gun. The Chinese puzzle bolt design is a nightmare, if you need to remove it and do not understand how it goes back together. There are no pins holding about half a dozen part in place. They just fit and rotate in the right position to all the other parts.
The Marlin hammer guns was not a real strong design but lasted a decent time. Several years ago Marlin sent out a advisory that they should not be used with modern ammo. Not clear if this was just lawyers talking, concerns about 100 year old designs and metal or a real concern about locking system not being very robust. I figure it was a combination of them all and the concern that today's idiots are more dangerous than those from the past, at self inflected harm doing stupid things. "Hold my beer" seem to be a too often heard last words spoken.
So do others have favorite pump guns that I have missed? Many of us started out with these designs, or graduated to them after single shot guns.
