Despite high manufacturing costs and low profitability, the late owner of Winchester had an affinity for the Indestructible 21

By: John M. Taylor | Updated 11:41 AM, October 26, 2021

I didn't grow up, and spent decades writing shotguns, I wouldn't retire like that. But I will use the rest of my duck hunting career to shoot what I think is one of the most well-made double guns ever-the Winchester 21. Although the Connecticut Shotgun Manufacturing Company is still producing this gun, and there are used versions, the price will be very high, and I can buy it when I am young. My uncle passed away and left me a piece of land, which I sold. I used the money to buy a second-hand Winchester 21 Duck model. It has been carefully restored, but I can see its past life in the eyes of many blind people. It has repaired the complete choke coil, I photographed it on a duck in Canada, and a clay bird in the confines of my home on the east coast of Maryland. It is one of the best American discontinuous shotguns ever made, and it will never leave my gun cabinet...Of course, unless I take it into the wild.

It is also the favorite double gun of Winchester owner John Olin. It is said that he liked this gun so much that he kept it in the Winchester lineup despite its high construction cost and low profitability. This is the story of one of the most iconic doubles in gun history.

As an avid waterfowl lover, my first idea after selling my uncle’s land was to buy the AH Fox HE-Grade Super Fox, which was famous for the late Nash Buckingham. Buckingham and Duck Scribe Gordon McQuarrie are my favorite writers. The Super Fox has an oversized barrel, a tight throttle, and weighs more than 9 pounds. This is a good gun for the duck blind, but I also want a double gun, which I can carry on high ground and use it to destroy clay.

An old friend, the late Michael McIntosh (Michael McIntosh) wrote an article about the Winchester Model 21 in the early development of Steel Shot. He detailed that its hard steel screw-in choke can handle "new" non-toxic shells (21s with a boring choke is unsafe for steel) and 21 weighs only 7 to 8 pounds (depending on The instrument and barrel length), making it a truly versatile double gun. Therefore, I narrowed my search to a second-hand Model 21, although I still couldn't find one with a screw-in choke.

21 Designed by JT Johnson, Edwin Pugsley and George Lewis, first introduced by Winchester in 1930, equipped with dual triggers and extractors, priced at $59.50. The problem Winchester faced at the time was that it was on the verge of bankruptcy, and there was almost no money for advertising, let alone the infrastructure built for production 21. When Franklin Olin and his sons Spencer and John solved the problem and owned the Western Cartridge Company, they bought Winchester in a bankruptcy sale and gave the company (and 21) new life. It has long been said that without John Olin's insistence, 21 might not stay in production for a long time. There are rumors that Winchester has never made much profit on the Model 21 due to high production costs, which further magnifies this point. But John Olin kept it in the lineup because it is an unparalleled spectacular side by side. And he doesn't plan to discontinue production of one of the most sophisticated guns in American history.

During the entire life cycle of the Model 21, approximately 30,000 guns were produced, and there were about 1,000 custom shops from Winchester. It uses 12, 16, 20 and 28 calibers, plus 0.410 calibers. When Browning received the Winchester name from Olin, the Connecticut Shotgun Manufacturing Company (CSM) was sold the rights to produce the Model 21 at their plant in New Britain, Connecticut, and they still do it today.

21 Durable. It is made of Proof Steel from Winchester, a chromium-molybdenum alloy with a tensile strength of more than 90 tons per square inch. During its development, nine design patents were issued. Unlike many other doubles of the day, 21 does not have rib extensions, but is locked by a thick and strong bottom bolt that can be tightened when the gun starts to loosen. The barrel is forged into a chopped block barrel instead of being brazed. They are processed into a vertical dovetail design in the breech, and then pinned together, each with a semi-locking lug, when connected and combined with the lower lug, forming a super lock.

One of the iconic designs of the Type 21 is the flat connection of the barrel and the role between the breech surface and the hinge pin. In order to further strengthen this area where the breech face meets the plane, there is an external arrow, which is part of the forging. The completion of this work is not to extend the life of the gun, but it is another indicator of Winchester's desire to build a long-term shotgun. The combination of barrel and barrel is so strong that when Winchester sales staff visited major sports shooting events in the 1930s, they would remove the top lever and locking bolt, then close the gun by hand, or use One piece to tie it up to show its strength.

John Olin went further and instructed the company to buy a model for the American doubles and British imported competitors at the time, and then tortured them for a torture test. The test included repeated launches of proof payloads called "blue pills" that were loaded to one and a half times the pressure (19,800 psi) of the hottest load on the market. The best competitive gun lasted 305 shots. A total of 2,000 blue pills were fired by 21 people, causing no measurable damage.

The original 21 had dual flip-flops, which were eventually replaced by inertia-driven single-select flip-flops. The main obstacle is that all existing single triggers do not work well, if any. Before making a truly reliable trigger, Louis Stiennon of Winchester made five iterations of the trigger design, which he patented in 1931. Since then, every 21 times it has been equipped with this excellent single-selection trigger, which is both reliable and reliable. Powerful.

All 21s are manufactured in basically the same way, although some models do have receiver engraving and high-end wood for the buttstock and front end. They did make models labeled Trap, Skeet, and Duck, but they are all very similar, except for the inventory size of the Duck version and the 3-inch chamber. The length of the barrel is 26, 28, 30 and 32 inches. Although most of them are improved and full, customers can order one according to their own choke specifications. 21 Only began to be available on custom orders in 1960, and then discontinued in the early 1990s.

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