Skip to main content
Help Center Community Shop

Winchester Model 12 Question?

TurnsignalJ
I know that the model 12 was manufactured from 1912 to 1961 and that some made in the 20's and 30's had barrels made of nickel steel. My question, did the featherweight model 12 ever have a nickel steel barrel? I think they were made between 1959 and 1961.
0

Comments

4 comments

Date Votes
  • Bert H.
    TurnsignalJ... ALL of the Model 1912/12s made up to about the mid 1930s were made with nickel steel barrels (with the exception of a very scant few that were made in 1929-1931 with stainless steel barrels). Winchester made the switch from Nickel steel to Proof steel sometime in the mid-late 1930s. So, if you have a 1959-1961 edition Model 12 with a Nickel steel barrel, it isn't original.

    Bert H.

    Real Men use a SINGLE-SHOT!
    0
  • TurnsignalJ
    Thanks Bert ! I was thinking the same thing.
    0
  • only winchesters
    No such animal as a Md 12 Featherweight with a Nickel Steel barrel. You can't even adapt a Md12 barrel to fit the "featherweight". Well you could if you cut the breech end off each barrel and welded one onto a FW barrel. I don't think anyone would go to that trouble. Based on what I've read from Maddis,Riffle and Stadt, Winchester stopped producing Nickle Steel barrels in the early 30s. Depending on gauge and barrel length, the stock of on hand nickel steel barrels were consumed by 1934. Based on my collection, 12 ga barrels were consumed by serial number 62xxxx, I have a 2o ga. with a serial number in the high 670xxx range with a Nickel steel barrel and a 16 ga in the range of 690xxx with a nickel steel barrel. They are original. Any Md12 produced after 1934 should have a "Winchester Proof Steel" barrel. they stopped stamping the barrels with the patten dates, I believe in 1942. A true collector of Md 12s knows what the barrel stampings are and can recognize when a gun has had the barrel swapped out.

    Bert H is correct when he said Winchester offered "Stainless Steel" barrels, that was in June 1926, by 1930 they had stopped offering "Stainless" barells, you can't blue stainless, and the process used to get them blue wore off quickly. I've only seen them in 12ga. I assume there may be a few in 16/20, I never seen one or seen one for sale in the almost 40 years I've dealing with Md12's.

    I've seen a guy on here listing a "FeatherWeight" Nickel steel gun. He is either a idiot, or never bothered to read the barrel stamping.
    Probabably more than you wanted to know, LOL Regards Dave
    0
  • TurnsignalJ
    Thanks to ONly Winchester! You saw the same listing I saw. Maybe the seller can not read. Thanks to all options and replys.
    0

Please sign in to leave a comment.

Recent Activity