You guys need to do a full cast of that barrel and find out what kind of old timey magic is making that trench gun pattern so well with buckshot. It handled both new and old style ammo better than a modern tactical gun with a fancy tacticool choke.
@@Juntasification could just be worn smoother from years of shooting. Or the shorter forcing cone from the old days of fiber wads might just like flite control as well
There is a saying about fishing tackle, that it doesn't have to appeal to fish, it has to appeal to anglers. I'm sure something similar applies here as well!
@@edm192 I have a fairly powerful laptop and everything with a good graphics card has RGB keyboards. It's the worst. Mine keeps defaulting to Christmas mode every time it updates. It's the worst. Great laptop though.
There's something to be said for that, yes. but let's keep in mind they didn't use the modern gun or the modern ammo at 25 yards, which would have demonstrated the use of such things. It's not particularly shocking to find out that trench guns are quite effective at trench ranges, and modern guns don't make targets any deader. It is surprising that this particular gun works little black miracles with modern ammo, though.
I grew up in the 1970s shooting a lot of old cardboard/paper shotgun shells. Then, as now, there were different grades of shells. The good hunting/field loads were made of a stout grade of paper that obviously had some sort of laquer type coating on them to make the shells stiffer and more weather resistant. The shells for target shooting were made with a thinner grade of paper and weren't nearly as heavy duty. I have to imagine it was the field grade hunting ammo that the military was selecting in the World Wars for these shotguns.
I remember reading somewhere the pros in WW1 wielding shotguns would seal their shells in hot beeswax then let it dry to prevent it from being a problem during wet conditions and that a lot of GIs preferred the reliability of the beeswaxed paper shells in wet conditions to the modern brass ones developed at that time. Might be worth testing to see how it works out!
@@Sciurus I imagine the wax lubricates the magazine and chamber, which probably helps. Especially if it is very humid or even wet. Keeps the rust away as well.
My "great" uncle took my great grand-dads trench gun and ALL of his full brass, as well as his Garand and 1911 to the police station when he passed, I was literally in tears when I found out
That story is all too common. If one is up in years and doesn’t want that to happen, one would be wise to find someone one feels is worthy to donate to before the choice is no longer theirs.
Most people just leave guns in their will to next of kin, whenever it really should go to whoever in the close family or friends will most value, appreciate, and cherish them to prevent situations like that. My friend had an uncle who owned a gun shop and died with dozens of guns, the family fought over them so hard it caused a rift, yet none of them actually knew or cared about guns, rather just saw them as valuables. Many of them are already sold off for pennies of their actual price. My friend is a gun nut like me, and 95% of the guns are owned by family members who hate his dad and thus by proxy distrust him. They’ll hold onto a massive collection of guns until they need money or are dead, and he will see none of them even though he would be the only one to actually clean, shoot, and appreciate them instead of leaving them forgotten in closets. At least though, they didn’t hand them over to the police to be destroyed.
I had an Army issued watch that was stamped "waterproof - shock resistant" and learned that was waterproof until you got it wet, and shock resistant until you dropped it. It seems the watch company could have learned something from cartridge manufacturers.
Unlike most of bulk chemical explosives used in explosive weaponry, gunpowder has always been fairly inert in dry and stable condition, but it quickly degrades if it comes into contact with something moist.
My brother in law had a case of paper shells he hunted birds with, that must have been at least 50 years old. They were stored in his humid basement. He would get a bad one once in a while, but they held up surprisingly well for bird hunting in the rain and snow. He was just a cheapskate when it came to shells. 😆
Dudes in my grandfather's mountain village would reload old paper shells with black-powder propellant, match-head primers and homemade lead balls. They mostly shot deer and pheasants.
Well what this shows is Winchester knew how to make a better barrel then SymTac today. Another thing, in WW1 the paper hulls were smooth sided waxed, and the WW2 hulls were corrugated waxed. The corrugated surface allowed slightly swollen shells to chamber somewhat easier then the slightly swollen smooth shells.
I’m not shocked that shotgun performed so well. The same could be said about a Medieval sword vs a sword made today. Point is the people making these weapons were not clueless at all and cared about what they made as if it was one of their children.
That's actually an inverted example. A sword made today would be dwarfed by a proper sword made in the Medieval period. Not because it's out of our technical capacity, but that it's such a niche market nobody is advancing and practicing the art of true battle-ready swords. Same thing for longbows. You're never going to find a modern longbow without a very, very expensive individual recreation of a classic English Longbow, which dwarf modern bows.
@@BlazingOwnageri wouldn't say that's true. Just look at the old vs new shell design. Steel we have today is leagues ahead of medieval in purity, and our forging proces is far more precise. It being a niche market has nothing to do with it, people just don't need innovation in swords because you get them for the historical appeal.
@@BlazingOwnagerI'm going to have to disagree. Metallurgy has come a long way since the Middle Ages. Smithing techniques have advanced somewhat, but metallurgy is lightyears ahead. Things like canister damascus (yes, I know it's not "real" damascus) were entirely unknown. Steel with carefully chosen percentages of carbon, vanadium, etc is also a fairly recent development. They didn't even know what vanadium was until 1830. Heat treatment was virtually a crapshoot prior to modern metallurgy. Oh, and you are unbelievably wrong about bows. Compound bows put any classic English longbow to shame. I can't even get into arrow design because you could write a book about the modern improvements.
I think some of you are missing the point here. While the materials used today are indeed far better, how we put things together back in the day, we took more pride in the build. These days, it's more about making a quick buck and to hell if there's any craftsmanship.
@@PropsandWings that's not necessarily true. Both historically and in a modern setting there are cheap, mass produced weapons of poor quality, and more expensive top quality weapons, as well as everything in between. You can get a sword of equal or better build quality and significantly better steel quality for a relatively cheaper price today as compared to historically.
@@dismemberedlamb9104 yes and no. They have Norinco (chinese manufacturer) copies around, and they used to be fairly plentiful IIRC, but there was some sort of legislation passed that prevented the import of chinese firearms. So you can't buy a new repro, but you can get one used for a pretty penny (but still cheaper than a real 1897)
Normally I am not a fan of shotguns, but I am really impressed with this one. And that pattern was definitely not what I was expecting. Really cool gun.
I would absolutely love to win that shotgun but unfortunately I'm not spending $50 for a coffee cup for a slim chance to win. Love the content and information you provide on your this channel
Same here. I went and looked and I'm not about to pay $50 for a $5 cup I with a lame inscription. I was expecting maybe a $5 keychain or something, not sure what to expect but it wasn't that
its called a raffle... this isnt some new fangled scheme, charities have been doing this for years. everyone knows they're making money off the thing. @@NittyGritty420
In regards to your remarks about the ammunition being worn out before use, I can attest to that. I used to be the department’s armorer for the PD that I worked for, and after a while, the shells loaded into the magazines would start to swell (even though they had mostly plastic hulls)and make it so that they couldn’t be loaded into the weapon’s chambers. I found that the hulls would spread from the pressure of the magazine springs constantly bearing on them over time. We began inspecting the ammo more frequently and replacing it after about 9months to a year. That ammo was relegated to use for dispatching crippled animals after collisions with vehicles. We used Winchester Ranger high brass only after it was found that the “Low Recoil” ammunition was crap, and wouldn’t penetrate a large deer enough to kill it with one shot. I actually had some pellets from a low recoil round ricochet off of the skull of a large buck at handshake distance without penetrating. That for me was the final straw, and I got the department to quit using those shells. We later switched over to utilizing the shotguns only with less lethal ammunition, with buckshot being issued only to the supervisor to dole out as needed for dispatching injured animals. That kept the ammunition in great shape, as it was never loaded into the guns until needed and no stress was placed on the ammunition.
The other thing with those paper shells, is a pump shotgun is going to be far harder on them than say an over and under. loading the tube and cycling them is more likly to damage them, than say gently pulling one out of double barrel.
The shells bounce back and forth in the mag tube during recoil. They are also subject to "axial" compression from the mag spring. This is not a problem with paper cased shells when they are dry. If they are s bit "scruffed" up and wet, your mileage may vary. In "civilian" applications, RELOADS on those paper hulls will introduce a whole new bunch of "interesting" factors. How many times can a paper case be "roll-crimped" before it becomes too shabby to close properly or feed and chamber? Then, there is the practice of "star-crimping" paper shell on domestic presses! Plastic "mono-wads" and star-crimped shells have changed the game somewhat. As for "high or low" brass? On a modern plastic case, it is all a bit academic. There have been several commercial ammo makers selling "brass-less" shot=-shells. And the "brass is usually a couple of microns of plating on thin steel, anyway. They RUST if left abandoned on the range. Tradition dies hard, sometimes. On a trap range, with a good gun, the extraction / ejection resistance is minimal. Note how big the extractors are on double-barreled guns, vs the dinky claws on most pumps and autos. Shot-shells, being "rimmed", notionally headspace on that rim. Thus, the body of the case can be a "racing fit" in the chamber. We are also NOT working with the sorts of chamber pressures encountered in serious centre-fire rifle rounds. So the "wad / shot-cup" device essentially seals the bore as it shoves the shot along the barrel.. Also bear in mind that the propellant is ALL consumed in 18 inches (or less) of the barrel. The rest of the barrel is there to lengthen the sighting plane, provide a weight distribution for "target following" and allow for all manner of creative choke options.. In an entirely different vein: Have you taken a close look at the French DEFA aircraft gun and is derivation? Our old and long-retired Mirage 111C fighters came equipped with them. Interesting bit of machinery.
@@bruceinoz8002the DEFA is, like it's British cousin the ADEN, based on the developmental German MK 213 cannon from the end of WWII. Both excellent, very capable guns that were in service for decades.
Paul Harrel also did a good demonstration on paper hulled ammo and water, and found much of the water hullabaloo to be a little unfounded, though that's not to say that its COMPLETELY false, as discussed in this video. One set of shells were even soaked for 30 minutes I believe, and was still fine.
@@Bourikii2992 Yes it is. The paper hull almost certainly has a water resistant coating and that can reasonably be expected to protect the shells for a couple of hours. 48 hours or more in damp conditions with the shells getting their finish abraded away by rubbing together or being loaded and unloaded is a very different kettle of fish. Any test that simply immerses the shells in water for a modest period of time is not at all representative of what the troops were actually dealing with on extended deployment in wet or excessively humid conditions.
@@Bourikii2992There's a significant difference between somewhat short term water exposure, and constant exposure to humidity and light moisture for days or weeks or months. Humidity in the air will work it's way through lacquering on the shells eventually, as well splashing from water and rain over months on end. It's definitely true that they're going to be vastly better than someone would expect when hearing about paper shells, and in most cases they'll be fine. As was the case in history, given the issues weren't so severe as to inspire immediate replacement. But at the same time, they clearly didn't hold up over the course of entire wars, otherwise no replacement attempts would have been made at all.
Even better, he went up to a full hour in salt water. He did mention that they would eventually swell and become unuseable, but in the short term before the water had fully penetrated and deformed the paper, they were fine. Makes the stories I hear about how some troops got around the water logged ammo issue by running each one through the action first and getting rid of the ones that didn’t cycle properly before doing a raid more plausible. While the shells may eventually go bad, it’s not gonna go bad in an hour, so as long as you know the shells work now, they’ll be sufficient for immediate use. Rest in peace, Paul. He was the best Guntuber.
a 'Nam' vet I knew who has since passed on ran a riverboat in his service.He told me that when they would take contact through the elephant grass returning fire with M16's meant a protracted firefight,several rounds of buckshot and the enemy would settle down fast! He had an 870.Norm was a good guy,glad to have known him!
I know I asked this before. But I'm yet to have gotten a answer from someone. But do I get both a coffee mug and a gun mat? Or ether one? $50 just seem to much just to get a coffee mug. I will keep asking this on every give away video till someone answers my question.
@@Horseshoecrabwarrior I didn't either until I noticed how well the old guns were shooting compared to guys with new guns and super rad turkey chokes. A whole lot of high dollar trap guns are 2.75" only, too.
France definitely had some rain, but tropical wet season is a whole other level when it just buckets down for 2-3months straight. We have a saying 'going troppo' for the special kind of madness of being stuck in it!
Regarding the immersion test Paul Harrel got a couple boxes of old paper shells and soaked them in salt water for an hour and they worked fine in his double barrel. It sounds like your hypothesis about loading and unloading rubbing off an outer waterproof layer has some merit. As does the idea that it takes quite a while for the problem to manifest.
Question: How does ammo age if stored in a dry condition? Are there any types of propellants or primers that deteriorate with age or are you okay with firing any vintage ammo?
Anything corrosive is risky with age. Mostly thats old russian ammo these days. Otherwise generally youre gonna be fine as long as there are no obvious issues such as corrosion or swelling. Be aware that powder does or at least can degrade over time and nearly always this means less energy. However there are rare cases where it can mean spikes in chamber pressures and bad endings. Generally its better to avoid the really old stuff unless you at least have experience reloading as that gives you a deeper insight into what to look for in chancy ammo. The thought is that one of those rare cases of spiking chamber pressures is what happened with kentucky ballistics when his 50cal exploded on him. He was using very old slap ammo which on its own was higher pressure to begin with. The gun itself was supposed rated for like 100000psi and the standard 50cal is rated at 65000psi average. So there should have been a pretty substantial safety factor but it still exploded violently almost killing kentucky ballistics. Basically if you buy old surplus make sure its still sealed, and when you get it take the time to look over every round. Toss any obviously iffy stuff and if there is more than a few in the bunch be careful with the rest of it too.
@mackenzieclancy959 im not sure on that. I know civilian ammo switched in the 1920s at some point but even the us military used corrosive until the early 1950s. Youd have to do some research but china probably used corrosive primers and powder until at least the early 50s. And its not that corrosive powder wont work after years in storage its just more susceptible to issues. Corrosive powders and primers also mean you really should clean the gun any time its used. Non corrosive stuff its not as important as it wont pit and eat at the barrel.
Would be nice if Winchester brought these back, though they would still be inferior to the original models due to the removal of slam fire. A man can dream though
That shotty was pretty damn impressive. It would have been nice to see what the modern shotgun would have patterned at 25 yards. Great video by the way
In Unrepentant Sinner, Charles Askins said he had ww1 buckshot for his remington 11 and he would cycle all the ammo through the gun before going on duty. The shells were swollen and bumpy and he wanted to make sure they would function.
I'll say it again all tests are incomplete until you've ran at LEAST 100 yards covered in mud and jump into a trench I'd also like to see explosions going off all around as you run the 100 yards but realize thats both too expensive and dangerous
The lesson here is how good modern ammo is, and how not so bad low tech old fashioned shotshells can be. Modern economy buckshot is not really any different than the stuff made 80 years ago except for the plastic components used in the wadding and shell. Patterns are much wider but still very useable for close range applications.
I have a box of 25 brass cased Remington UMC 00 buckshot . On the box it says #5 primers & they are much smaller than a 209 primer. I always thought that one of the reasons why the military went with all brass cases was because they loaded & unloaded the rounds so often that the paper hulls didn’t hold up well.
I'll be honest - I expected the 10 yard pattern to be about twice as large with the 1918 shell & shotgun. That gun patterned tighter than my Mossberg 500 cylinder bore with modern (but dirt cheap) S&B #4 buck.
I’ve got some of the S&B buck, both 00 and 1. Like you said, felt wad and cardboard. More importantly, no shot cup. Bare lead shot gets deformed a lot more going down the barrel, which opens up the pattern. I have a Vang Comp SBS and I think the vents shear off some lead as well. My light was positioned close to the ports and wound up with a layer of lead on it. Used the case mouth of a spent .223 round as a scraper to remove it. You get what you pay for - but try to get at least a shot cup.
I've always had very difficult extraction using S&B as well as Rio buckshot of the same construction. It didn't matter which shotgun I tried: Mossberg 590 or Rem Police Magnum 870, both 3" chambers. I even tried some in my 870 Super Mag with 3.5" chambers and it still required tapping the buttstock on the ground to get the shell to extract. Never had the problem with Federal, Remington, Winchester, Fiocchi, or Wolf buckshot.
Hey Ian, general wisdom these days is that brass hulls can only be reliably loaded with blackpowder (or substitute). Were the brass shotshells they issued back then loaded with blackpowder?
Very interesting video! Regarding "grex buffering", my question is, is there a situation similar to the first versions of Claymore mines? These initially had a bad dispersion pattern, but after embedding the pellets in resin the dispersion became very uniform. Greetings from Argentine Patagonia.
Generally modern paper ammo like Federal Skeet/Trap loads are heavily waxed. Perhaps the old ammo wasn’t or more likely it melted off in a particularly hot year.
I did testing at my Department at least 15 years ago with flite-control through 3 different shotguns; a 18” Rem 870 patrol shotgun, a 14” Rem 870 Scattergun Technologies and my SWAT 14” Benelli M1 Super 90. Tests were done at 10 and 25 yards. I took pictures of every test but at this point, I can’t remember the pattern sizes. All were significantly smaller using flight control, compared to normal Federal 00 buckshot, most pronouncedly with my Benelli which kept all 9 pellets on the silhouette at 25. Before you would only see 4-5. Needless to say they are still carrying it. From my understanding it was developed for turkey hunters.
While not old enough to have been in WWI or II, I am old enough to have used paper Super X. Never had any issues with the stuff and in fact the stuff was magic. I remember getting 24 game birds out of one box including 10 doves, 6 pheasants and 8 ducks! Wish I had 10 more cases of it! lol
The old Winchester Super-X was great stuff. I loved it. I used to live near the city in Illinois that Winchester made most of their ammunition at, and it was the most common ammunition in the local stores. I still have a stash of .22lr Super-X hollowpoint ammunition for squirrel hunting as it is extremely accurate and expands just right, not too much or too little. I haven’t seen any Winchester Super-X ammunition in years. After the manufacturing of it was moved to Mississippi, it all went away from my area. 😢
We used low-brass Winchester AA #9s for woodcock and quail. They were finicky in comparison to high brass Super X, or Remington Express. Regarding this video, I suspect the swelling is due to the formation of lead oxide on the buckshot, and not the paper shell at all.
I remember trying one of the Hornady loads, back before anyone called that type flight control. I was amazed by the pattern. I thought it was a fluke at first. It easily doubled the range of our 870s.
Back in the 60s I did some trap shooting with paper hulled shot cartridges. My recollection is they all had a very thin coating of wax on them to aid in water rejection. I wasn't the one cleaning those shotguns, but I suspect that after 20 or 30 rounds those chamber areas would need a lot of scrubbing. I don't know in which year the ammo makers began wax papering the shells, but I suspect if not done before WWI, it certainly began shortly afterwards.
-Obtain shotgun -Don't like large spread of buckshot -Buy very expensive buckshot to shoot inside 25 yards turning it into expensive slug what do they mean by this?
Matt said pellets that are not perfect spheres tend to "go wonky places." Has anyone ever tried using dimpled pellets, similar to tiny golf balls? If the aerodynamics work similarly, dimples *should* decrease air resistance and decrease shot spread.
It wouldn't surprise me if that were the case, although the effect would likely be reduced by deformation during firing. Be neat to see how it worked out in practice, though!
I read the title, thought about it, asked myself "would that be a good use of my time?". Then I thought, "Yes, I do want to know how a trench gun patterns" A strange subject, but I do like shotguns and the trench gun is a pretty good one with a rich and hard won history.
I'm disappointed that they didn't look into the most obvious application: What would happen if you put it into the mouth of a xenomorph that tries to enter your APC?
I had the idea for flight control shells and about 2 years later they came out. It makes me wonder if i could have gotten in on the idea but it was likely already in the works
@@tomhenry897 You're right. But his test wasn't a 30 minute submersion test, now was it? In the context of what he was testing, it's fine and is still an interesting experiment. I went back and rewatched the video and I'll admit I'm in the wrong to imply Paul's test was a general water/moisture resistance test. It's definitely NOT comparable to WW1 wet trench combat conditions. My bad. I didn't remember all of the details of a video I watched 6 months ago.
In WW2 the Marines in the Pacific used shotguns for sniper suppression. They'd used shotguns or submachine guns to blast the middle out of any tree suspected of housing a Japanese sniper.
9 pellet 00 buck sits very uniformly when stacked in a 3x3 configuration within a 12 gauge hull even in the absence of modern flight controlled wads and buffer material. Though these innovations have significantly improved the performance of this loading I believe the process of loading buckshot in this way pre-dates cartridges and had origins in muzzle loading. Similarly 9 pellet 0000 in a 10ga, 9 pellet 0 in 16ga, and 9 pellet #1 buck in a 20ga offer similar long range buck shot performance when spiral stacked in a 3x3 configuration.
I shot off a bunch of 16 gauge paper shells back in the very early 2000s and those shells were probably 50 plus years old at the time and they worked flawlessly and smelt so good nothing else smelled like they did.
Had grabbed a bag of loose shells from the local gun store (stuff given up with old trades or surrendered). Those old paper cartridges had a definitely different kick and the smell was so much better.
I started out with paper shells as a kid. I had a little lee hand loader. The original shot was very water resistant. They are impregnated with some kind of wax. Now I did use a bit of wax to seal the ends of the round after reloading. I never had a first shot round not load or eject from a single barrel 12. My reloads? A few swelled.. Now I loaded and unloaded everyday with a duty gun. Every six months I changed the rounds out. Chamber wear is a thing even with modern ammo. Same with a pistol.. 4 to 6 month and all ammo was changed that I carried…
So the WW1 gun shoots tighter than the high dollar modern gun????? It almost makes me think the gun companies are full of crap when they try to upsell the latest and greatest tech.
What I find REALLY STUPID is the NFA, which was written in 1934, specifically stated short barrel shotguns were "of no military use". But clearly short barrel shotguns WERE of SIGNIFICANT military value.
@@mpetersen6 It was a way for police and feds to "get something" on mobsters and such during their unconstitutional shakedowns. In those days the general consensus was that no honest man would need or want a short barreled rifle/shotgun or a machine gun in the first place. Fudd logic combined with corrupt government and law enforcement is what gave us the NFA.
Supposedly the " rule of thumb " for riot shotties is 1" spread per yard . Winnie is a tight old gal ! Good luck to everyone who enters ! Has there been any more news on the 97 trench gun re-issue that was supposed to come out this year ?
For shotgun tests like this, i would recommend putting up multiple cardboard sheets at various distances one behind the other, so you can see how the shot spreads over distance.
This was interesting and sort of funny. My Norinco 87 trench gun shots tighter than my trooper bud firearm instructors Remington 870! Almost mirrors what happened here!
When I first start shooting shotguns as a lad there were still paper cartridges. Hunting all day in British drizzle you could see where wet was seeping back front the front of the shell- never had one cause problems though.
I remember having some of those paper shells, when I was young. They did okay ejecting from my older brothers pump, but I had some problems with my old single shot. Looking back, down memory lane, my brothers old second hand pump, looked an awful lot like that Winchester. One of those I wish I knew then, what I know now moments.
