HI,

I have a question, my brother just bought a Ithaca 37 16 gauge featherweight. Here is the interesting part, it has two barrels. One barrel is a vent rib improved cylinder with a colored sight on the front. The second doesn't have a rib and is full choke.

Both barrels and frame have matching numbers.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance,

ddj

I'm not sure what kind of "help" is needed. Apparently your brother has a later model of the Ithaca 37 than the 12 I had in the early 1950s. If used on pheasants (I see you have an Iowa location) the Imp.Cyl. should do well on early season birds. You don't mention barrel lengths but the full choke in a 30" barrel would be something for use on ducks and geese. The problem (for me) would be that a 16 is not all that good at longer ranges.(where a full choke works best) on even ducks, much less geese. (I toted a 16 DB all through my teen years and loved it -even on ducks - but that was jump shooting along brooks and sneaking up on beaver ponds for mallards and teal - never attempted on Canadas) (Hope this is not too far off the mark for the kind of info you're looking for)

Thanks Gerald,

The vent rib barrel is 26" and the plain full choke barrel is 28".

I was hoping that someone could tell me some history of a gun like this.

Why 2 barrels that have matching numbers?

ddj

trouthunterdj:

I can only conclude that this was some kind of offer by Ithaca intended as a "package" sale -and intended to counter competition by Polychoke for shooters at the time (like me) who didn't like the look of the Polychoke. (a multiple choke device on the barrel end) One AR poster has compared the device to a potato stuck on the end of the barrel. I agree emphatically. It might be worthwhile to check around because such a set of barrels for an Ithaca 37 might be worth money to a collector.

Ithaca Model 37's earlier than 855,000 have barrels fitted to each receiver, later 37's have interchangeable barrels. Early barrels are usually numbered to match the receiver.

I would not be surprised to learn that someone had sent the gun back to the factory to have a second barrel fitted.