I have been assisting a young man in finding and purchasing his first Winchester and let me tell you, he hit the jackpot on this one. It's a 1957 vintage Model 12 Field Gun with a 28 inch Modified choked barrel. The bluing was almost pristine, an honest 98%. The factory varnish remained and aside from a few light handling marks on the stock, rated 95%. The forend was near perfect. Upon closer inspection, I found that the bolt face had hardly a sign of the "ring" that the shell primers leave and the side of the bolt was barely scratched. The carrier looked almost new. I believe that this gun was not ever fired more than a few times and is not even broken in yet. A couple of the Model 12s I own are very, very nice, but the gun I found for this young man beats them all. What a great feeling I have.

I hope he appreciates your help and realizes what a great gun he got. I am always happy to hear of another generation getting into what we all know already is one of the best guns ever made.

Sounds like he found one sweet Model 12! I hope he realizes what he has but I am sure he does. Its great hearing stories like this; you should get him to sign up and post some pictures of it when he gets a chance.

I've been schooling this kid for years. He has a good idea of what he has and is already talking about getting more Model 12s in 16 and 20 gauges. I'm trying to get him to join this forum and hopefully he will and get some pictures up. Myself, I am going to get someone over here to show me how to post pictures.

Sounds great.

That was extra special helping this young man out. It took someone outside my family to take the time to teach me about hunting and shooting when I was young. Here I am almost 40 years later and it's still all I want to do. It would be interesting to hear what his buddies with their plasticized, space age looking modern pump guns have to say of his dinosaur Model 12. If they only knew....

winmod21 wrote:That was extra special helping this young man out. It took someone outside my family to take the time to teach me about hunting and shooting when I was young. Here I am almost 40 years later and it's still all I want to do. It would be interesting to hear what his buddies with their plasticized, space age looking modern pump guns have to say of his dinosaur Model 12. If they only knew....

All his friends and his brothers love the gun, but they don't realize the quality that's involved. At least not yet, I'm going to keep trying to teach them about that before it's lost completely. They like the fact that is over 50 years old and still looks new.

M-12s are a piece of history. In your hands you are holding something that has been lost - the workmanship of humans unaided by computers - and it's darn near impossible not to get it.

Mentoring is one of great privileges life offers us. It's easy to insulate ourselves with our possessions, and call it "good".......for a time. In the end, like the author of Ecclesiastes, we're left with a vacant feeling. It's a truly great day when we discover our Winchesters have meaning to the extent we share them (and ourselves) with others. Good on you, 1912.

Sam

Thankyou Sam. You know, when you explain the concept of how Model 12s were made as compared to how guns are made now, a few of them are very interested even though they do not grasp it fully. Others, however, just start talking about their Berettas and Benellis. The whole concept just bounces off of their heads. If I can reach one out of 10 of them, I feel like I'm gaining some ground. But young people today generally only care if it looks cool and goes bang. Luckily, I've been able to reach my son, my two nephews, and three or four of their friends. I'm going to keep preaching that gospel too.