Thirteen year old me had a dream of getting a pump shotgun.  This was pre-internet so the only thing I had to go by was what I saw in “Guns & Ammo” and “Field & Stream” magazines, that and nonsense reporting from my friends.  I thought I wanted a Remington 870.  They probably had the best ads of the group.  I also liked the Winchester name so was interested in the Winchester 1300.  I remember one day going to Creekside Gun Shop with my dad in upstate NY.  It was a pretty cool place because it had rows and rows of long guns and you could pick up and examine anything you wanted.  I remember going down the pump section, testing the Remington 870, the Mossberg 500, the Winchester 1300, might have been a High Standard or some other lesser brands too.  Then I came to the Ithaca 37.  I remember really liking how it cycled.  It was noticeably much slicker than the others.  But my little brain could not fathom how ejecting out the bottom could ever work reliably.  The timing of kicking out an empty and lifting a new round in the same path just seemed impossible to 13 yr old me.  Somewhere along the line I was in Sears and tried a Ted Williams 200 which was a rebranded Winchester and I actually thought it was smoother than the Winchester version.  I dropped hints to my dad that I wanted the Remington or the Ted Williams.  That Christmas what I got was the Mossberg 500CT.  I sort of understood, we didn’t have a lot of money and I think my dad got a deal by buying it from the Two Guys Dept Store that was going out of business. Flash forward to today, I am 56 yrs old, used to live in Ithaca NY, and I want an Ithaca 37.  I now understand how well they work and I wanted one. It would be the little sister to the 4 Ithaca Lefever Nitro Specials I own.

I was on GunBroker and had been stalking vintage Model 37’s for several months.  I knew they were usually going for >$400.  I saw one come up with a buy now for $275.  It had some issues, but I knew it would not last long. It was also not my ideal configuration in terms of

• barrel length – I wanted 28″, it was 25″
• choke – I wanted modified or poly choke, it was labelled full.
• rib –  I wanted vent rib, it had no rib.
• pump handle – I wanted ring turned (corn cob), it was standard contoured smooth
• checkering – I wanted flat top checkering like on my Lefevers, it was pressed
• non-matching serial numbers – The barrel dates to 1963 while the receiver is 1967.

It had some minor rust, some minor stock damage and a lot of wear on its bluing, the recoil pad was completely decomposed.  It needed me to help it out 🙂 So I made an offer of $250 thinking that the seller would not take it.  They did!!!

My new vintage Ithaca model 37

From a distance it does not look too bad.

As you get closer you can see where the stock has some dings and the finish is failing.

The finish was flaking on the finials, but the stamped checkering was in such good shape, that I am pretty certain this stock has never been re-finished.

A few dings but in pretty good shape.

Oof the recoil pad has rotted away. Yes friends, rubber does oxidize. Notice how it is narrower at the top that the bottom.

See the failure of the finish down by the recoil pad. The little white dots are mold.

This was an Ithaca recoil pad. I am fairly certain this is original to the gun. Too bad it is not save-able.

The fact that top portion of the recoil pad is more crushed, tells it collapsed under the weight of the gun.

Story of this gun #1

I knew when I saw the shape of this pad, that this gun had probably spent the last 20+ years of its life standing in the back of a closet, not being used.  Nobody would repeatedly shoot a gun with a pad that was in this bad shape.  The angle of the crush of the pad is what you get when the gun is leaning against a wall.  The fact that the bottom of the pad is rounded but not perfectly flat tells me it has been sitting on carpet, not the flat floor of a gun safe. The mold on the stock is what you get when the gun is in a dark place without much air movement.  the light rust is what you get from a gun just sitting there.  The seller was a pawn shop  in Covington, LA

The finish is definitely failing on this pump handle.

More of the finish failing but some nice grain hiding there.

No issues, other than a failing finish.

The following photos include before and after of me removing rust with bronze wool and  Hoppes No 9, degreasing with brake cleaner and bluing using Brownell's Oxpho Blue.

BEFORE: Here is the receiver before re-blue.  It is kind of grey.

AFTER: This took a nice deep blue

BEFORE

AFTER

Story of this gun #2

The silver halo around the lettering on the gun barrel tells me that at some point this was hit with a wire wheel to remove rust.  At some point this barrel had significant rust removal done to it.  It came from Louisiana, so that is not too surprising. High humidity can be tough on firearms.

BEFORE: A wire wheel has been used to remove rust on this barrel, as seen by the white halo around the letters.

AFTER: The Oxpho Blue made this all nice and uniform in color.

BEFORE: Some rust that needs to be removed with bronze wool. Steel wool can also work, but if you leave any wool fragments behind, the steel will rust, while the bronze will not.

AFTER: Rust removed and re-blued.

BEFORE: I had to remove the sight to get to the rusty patch on the barrel that surrounded the sight. The bead site on this gun had a rectangular base, so I used an adjustable wrench to unscrew it.

AFTER: rust removed, blued and site re-installed.  This sight was odd.  I had never seen one like it on any other Ithaca model 37’s.  They either had brass beads, or some kind of red fiber sight.  This one looked like it should have a ball on the front.  I bought a brass bead that matched Ithaca’s specs for size and thread pitch to replace this sight.  However, it did not match the hole that this one mounts in.

A few weeks later, I spotted this bead on a Polychoke from the same time period. You can see it in this photo that is not from my gun. However, the sight on my gun came from a Polychoke.

Story of this gun #3

This gun has a barrel with the word “Full” stamped on the left side and a 4 (for 4/4 choke) on the right side.  It should have a full choke.  However when I measured it, it comes up a cylinder bore, no choke.  It also has a length of 25″, but this model only came with 28″ or 26″ barrels.  I think if you had a 26″ full choke barrel and cut off an inch, it would still have some choke, so I think it was likely a 28″ barrel.   Combining that with the discovery that the bead came from a Polychoke and we have a probable story. I believe this barrel started life as a 28″ full choke barrel.  At some point, somebody cut 2″ off the barrel to remove the choke and installed a Polychoke.  Then farther down the road, someone cut another inch off the barrel to remove the Polychoke, leaving the barrel 25″ with no choke.  They retained the bead from the Polychoke and mounted it on the barrel.  To add to the mystery though, this barrel has a serial number that does not match the receiver of this gun.  So somewhere along the line, somebody swapped barrels on this gun.

Rusty and cruddy parts from the gun

Boiling the parts to convert the rust.

The internals of this gun were covered with crusty crud from long dried lubricants as well as rust. Impressively, the gun still cycled smoothly with no hint at how gummed up it was.  This is a testament to the action of the Ithaca Model 37’s design.  I put all the really small parts in tea balls and dropped them and the larger parts into a pot of boiling water and let them boil for 45 minutes.  This not only removed all the crud, but it converted red rust (ferrous oxide) to black rust (ferro-ferric oxide) which is essentially inert.  I then put the parts in oil until I could card them with bronze wool to free them of the rust.

The recoil pad was a challenge to get off, because the collapsed and hard pad would not allow a screw driver access to the screws. Eventually I got it off.

I had read some place online that Ithaca used to mark the year on the butt of the stock to indicate when it was built. This one says “Y 25” which is not possibly a year because 1925 was before 1937, while 2025 would be too new. So I don’t know what these letter and numbers represent.

Sanding and finish removal

Like other gun stock refinishing work I have done, I start with a sharp woodworking card scraper.  Light gentle scraping removes old finishes pretty cleanly. The narrow end of the rectangular scraper gives lots of control, while the curved scraper grants enough options to get into many of the curves.

The scraper shaped like a Shmoo gives you lots of options for getting into curves.

Use the narrow end for lots of control.

Yep, all this to be scraped too. The idea is to remove the finish, without removing the wood.

Using the narrow end of the scraper you can carefully get all the wood clean. Event he parts that are within the checkered field. Go slow, be patient.

This silicone mold makes it easy to make two spacers at a time.

With the stock all scraped it was time to attach the recoil pad and spacer.  The spacer is made with deep pour epoxy mixed into three color batches using mica powder for resin poured into a 2.75" x 10" silicone mold. I like Kick Eez grind to fit recoil pads.  I use a little 15 minute  epoxy to glue them to the epoxy spacer. That way the two pieces don’t shift around which would leave you with a noticeable sharp ledge between them.

15 min epoxy joins the recoil pad to the epoxy spacer and keeps them from shifting around

trimmed the spacer/recoil pad in line with the stock at the bandsaw. The idea is to match the lines of the stock.

Oops, I got a little to close the stock with the bandsaw blade.

A Japanese saw makes it easy to trim the other sections of the spacer away.

This is about as close as you can get with a saw. The rest has to be done with either sandpaper or a file.

A 220 grit belt on a belt sander clamped into a vise works pretty good to get the spacer and recoil pad flush with the wood. You can see where I got a little to close and the wood got some sanding scars. I will have to sand those out by hand.

This sanding block is perfect for gun stocks.

I have grown fond of these Milescraft Sand It blocks, they have the perfect size and shape for working on gun stocks.

You can see there is a fair amount of color variation between the two pieces of black walnut.

BEFORE: Sanded

AFTER: wiping down with TransTint Dark Walnut dye just to try to even them up a bit.

A bit of TransTint Dark Walnut dye and TransTint Mahogany dye mixed in alcohol gave it a little color to get them a little closer.  The alcohol does not raise the grain much, but you still need to do a little light sanding to remove the whiskers.  Then I use rottenstone which is a fine abrasive powder and [[[pure Tung oil]] to fill the pores.  This results in a smoother and better looking finish.  Wipe it on, rub the rottenstone into the pores.  Wipe off the excess completely.  Put the stock out in the sun to cure the Tung oil , repeat with rottenstone and oil a few more days (one coat per day) Usually after three pore fillings, you can leave the rottenstone out of the mix and just hand rub very small amounts pure Tung oil into the wood, then sun cure it.  After about 7 coats, you have a beautiful and durable finish that is easy to repair if it gets damaged.  I firmly believe Tung oil is the best finish for gun stocks.

When I purchased this gun I thought I wanted the ring cut (corncob) handle, this style was my last choice. However, after using this one, I am convinced that this is actually the best grip. It is comfortable and gives a positive grip at the same time. I think it is superior to the corncob and the more fancy looking checkered varieties.

I am kind of old fashion and prefer a hand checkered grip, but I have to admit the pattern they achieved with this pressed checking looks pretty nice and offers decent traction.

The custom epoxy spacer adds just a bit of color and brings this gun to match the length of my others. Maybe after a few more fittings I will figure out how to not have the recoil pad get ragged at the boundary. It comes off the belt sander fine, but the edge starts to break down during the hand sanding.

BEFORE

AFTER

Shooting Clays with the Ithaca 37

After all the restoration, we took the gun to our local clays grounds and put 200 rounds through it.  We were anticipating that the cylinder bore was going to work against us, but in reality there were very few clays that we could not hit. All the ones we missed, were not the gun’s fault. The action was smooth, with no failures to feed.  It performed flawlessly and just felt great.  One surprising bit was that being a Featherlight at only 6.25lbs I expected it to kick a little harder than my 6.8lbs Mossberg 500.  They both have the the same recoil pad and my son and I both agreed that is seemed to kick less than the heavier gun.  I really enjoyed shooting it. My son even commented, “I think you should keep this one, or find an even better Model 37.”  He is now a fan of the Ithaca 37 too.

History of the Ithaca Model 37

This gun was the result of two geniuses and giants working on the same gun.  It was originally designed in 1913 by John Moses Browning for Remington and patent was awarded in 1915. It was designed from the beginning to be a 20 gauge, slender and perfectly balanced. In 1917 (possibly as late as 1919) John Pedersen made some slight changes that also received patents.  Due to the war efforts, the gun did not actually make it to market until 1921, but still kept the Remington Model 17 designation. In preparation for producing a copy of the 17, the Ithaca Gun Company’s designer Harry Howland made a few improvements to the firing pin and ejection mechanism to make it easier to produce. When the patents expired in 1937 Ithaca started selling the Ithaca Model 37 pump action shotgun.  It served this county in WWII, Korean and Vietnam wars.  It is the still being produced today and is the longest running production of a shotgun model in history.  The same design also was used by Browning Arms Co. as the Browning BPS.

Points of perfection for the Ithaca 37

• The action is simple and smooth. – Cycling any pump action brings a smile to most gun enthusiasts, but the action on the Model 37 has no equal. It is fast and very smooth.
• Reliable – this action is amazing in that it will reliably cycle ammunition  while on either side, upside down or any other orientation.
• Bottom ejection – Ejecting out the bottom means it is great for left handed shooters as well as companions in a duck blind who don’t get hit in the head by ejecting shells coming out the side of the gun as they would with other pumps.
• Less risky action – With only having one loading/ejection port there is a great reduction in the likelihood of dirt, debris, rain and snow getting into the action.  The action stays clean and unobstructed.
• Light weight – All model 37’s carried the name “Featherlight” because they were light even though they were all steel.  This made them a favored gun for upland bird hunting. There was also an “Ultra Featherlight” that had an aluminum receiver to make it even lighter.
• Trigger – the trigger is one of the smoothest and most rifle-like trigger you will find on any pump action shotgun.

Tactical Tragedy

There are a lot of used and well loved Ithaca model 37’s on the market.  The internet is littered with fools who buy a beautiful vintage model 37 field gun and immediately hack off the barrel to 18″ and parade around calling it “Tactical” (vomited a little just getting that word out).  Then they run out to the back yard and immediately demonstrate its slam fire capabilities.  Slam fire mean you can keep the trigger pressed and it will fire every time you close the action.  It works, but is less precise and no faster than pulling the trigger when you want it to fire.  Please, let the field guns with longer barrels be free to enjoy their purpose.  Keep your hack saws and angle grinders safely tucked away.  For every vintage field gun out there there are plenty of Deerslayers, police, and military model 37’s out there that have short barrels and are also capable of slam fire.  Any pre-1975 Model 37 should be able to do it.