I recently purchased a 1970 Ithaca Model37 Supreme in 12ga. (nice wood!!). Subsequently, a co-worker informed me that he has known of several of the Model 37 12s that had discharged second rounds through the tube as the load was being cycled to the chamber. Well, I've never heard of this, and have owned and hunted upland game almost exclusively with a 1968 Model 37 16 ga. since 1974. The worst that happened is that it dropped the second load when cycling. Although frustating, it actually saved me a lot of ammo when grouse hunting! Based on the receiver design, I just don't understand how this can happen. Have any of you folks experienced or heard of this? Is this theoretically possible? Thanks.

I have an Ithaca 37 Magnum that I bought new in the early eighties that ejected a shell from the magazine when shooting magnum loads. It had a weak magazine retaining spring which I replaced and it has worked fine ever since. Nice handling light shotgun that I use on combination duck/snipe hunts.

I've used M37s all my life. 12, 16, 20 ga. Once you get the various little shell handling widgets bent and shaped right in each gun they are dead reliable.

The only "failure" I heard of was an idiot (or drunkor both) that chambered a 20 ga in a 12, thought he had shortshucked it and racked a 12 ga in behind. BLOOEY! That can happen with any shotgun.

Never heard of any problems with them, other than not to dry fire without a dummy. Tends to break the firing pins.

My father, brothers, uncles, cousins account for dozens of M37s and untold thousands of rounds. They are sweet!

The single hole for loading and ejecting keeps the rain out of the receiver, and makes it a lot less likely to get grass seeds and trash in there as well. I wouldn't have a different pump.

Don

I've never heard of that problem. The fact that it will fire after cycling without taking your finger off of the trigger will scare some people.

Have several M37's, and never the problem you describe.

Yes, this happened to me. The last round out of the tube struck the ejecter, which is bottom mounted on the m37. The smith who cleaned it out found the primer inside creased right down the middle. He blamed the incident on Peters traploads. They had been having trouble with misfires, and lightened the primers, so he said. This incident could have been a real disaster if another shell had been in the tube and been fired by the bb's from the shell that did go off.
This happened in 1969 or 1970, the gun was new.

I've seen half a dozen M37s fail by the shell released from the magazine, with a protruding primer, stiking the edge of the trigger plate which fires the shell outside the chamber. In 3 of the 6 occurances there were other shells still in the magazine tube and they were also fired as a result of the first discharge. Left-hand injury resulted in these three.

It is BAD to have a less than flush primer in all the bottom eject shotguns. Remington M10 and 31s will do the same thing.

Yes, I've experienced a jam with a law enforcement "issued" Model 37. It occurred when I was trying to very quietly (hence slowly) cycle a round into the chamber. We were subsequently able to re-create the jam on this particular shotgun and another departmental Model 37 by attempting to cycle the actions very slowly. However, if the actions were cycled "normally" with speed and gusto, they functioned flawlessly.

Seldom in a hunting or clay target shooting situation would the action be done slowly. Done briskly they work as good as any.