1911sl barrelbreech loading winchester shotgun

T

tommy burel

Inactive
folks, i have a barrel breechloader and it is in real good condition. shoots well. just in case the recol spirng gets weak, or the wood dowel shatters du know where i can get this part? as well as a wood plug??

and does anybody have any idea what one that is about 90 percent condition is worth?? curious. tommy
 
Greetings tommy burel and welcome aboard.

I'm a little confused: I think of a 1911 as being a version of the Browning designed .45 automatic pistol. I'm not aware of a model 1911sl shotgun. Winchester made a very popular shotgun that was introduced in 1912. It was originally known as the Model 1912 but as its fame increased the name was shortened to simply Model 12. I'll assume that's what you mean.

The Model 12, being a pump action gun, doesn't have a recoil spring; but, it does have a large coil spring in the magazine tube that feeds the ammo. Replacement magazine springs are cheap and readily available. As for the wood dowel (or "plug"), it serves to limit the magazine's capacity to comply with some hunting regulations. The gun will function fine without the plug; however, if you are hunting without a plug when it is required, the penalties may be severe.

Model 12's value can vary drastically, a gun could be a rare target model worth several thousand dollars or some farmer's daily beater suitable only as a parts donor. Some pics and specifics about your gun will help in estimating its value.
 
Winchester did make a Model 11, it was their first venture into autoloaders, IIRC. It had a knurled place on the barrel, and you pumped the barrel to load the first round as it was a recoiling barrel ala Browning. Known as the "widow-maker" because people had a habit of setting the butt on the ground to pump the barrel and the thing could go off and blow the guy's head off. One caveat: DO NOT, repeat NOT use anything other than trap loads in this gun. When this gun came out we were just coming out of the black powder days and the ammo that we consider low power loads was high power stuff back in the day. It was not designed to use modern high power loads. I had one come in several years ago that would double or triple fire when using high power loads because the recoil would cause the parts to over-ride and drop the hammer, worked fine with trap loads. Another option would be to retire the old gun. There are better, more reliable guns available. Here endeth the lesson. Goatwhiskers the Elder

edit: parts are almost unavailable, and you do NOT want to take out the recoil spring.
 
Goatwhiskers, many thanks for the heads-up on the Winchester Model 11, from your description as a widow maker it sounds like a wonderful candidate for a wall hanger.
 
I was thinking I had seen a couple of those shotguns- and that they WERE labeled "1911 Model". I did a quick google-ing and sure 'nuff- there's way too many references for them to be a fluke.

I would like to have one just for an afternoon or so- merely for curiosity of how it was made, fit, finish, etc. They should make for interesting study... and wall hanging of course.
 
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