The Pump

America's shotguns & history repeating

My earliest recollection of hunting was the distinctive clack, clack of my father's silver-worn Winchester Model 1897. Kept by his Havana, Illinois, landlady as rent from a duck hunter who'd lost his money in a card game, the gun was later bought by my father for $8 at the height of the Depression. I occasionally shoot it still. Just as King Edward VII defined an era in Britain, the Model 1897, later shortened to the Model 97, defined America's transcendent shotgun. In an era of seemingly endless waterfowl flights, no bag limits and double guns, a smoothbore capable of putting six shots at the disposal of a hunter was heady stuff.

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