Yep definitely an unequal and unfair test here. The modern gun should not have even been included in the test, it had no relevance whatsoever other than showing modern ergonomics improve handling. The question was "Does slamfire make a difference?" so the test should have been a run using slam fire and a run not using slam fire by releasing the trigger, but using the same trench gun on each test. This showed nothing but modern ergonomics saves time.
It's also the fact that the 870 is something he is more familiar with, and was faster just through training alone I think this test was somewhat bungled
Trench owner here. My observation is that he has more practice with the modern gun amd therefore that is why he is faster with it. Slamfire can be accurate if you practice. Ive done competitions with friends and not only does the slam fire shoot faster, you can be accurate as well. Just gotta get that muscle memory.
Yeah, it'd be nice if they got actual experts instead of the nearest overweight american who's used great uncle gandpappy's old trench gun to go frog giggin' back in the summer of '82
The biggest takeaway to me was that he had more experience and time behind the modern shotgun. If you had given him equal time on the trench gun it would have been a fairer comparison. End of the day, pick a system you're comfortable and quick with and train train train.
Same thought. If you ever see how those guys with lever action rifle do fast shooting, they do it without hiccups, and they're accurate. They also don't load before shooting. They rack the level back when they shoot
@@thedesignerblacksmith5953 Can you do this with leveraction rifles as well? How? I can´t do it on mine, because my trigger finger is on the hand that rocks the lever... However, I can pull that trigger instantly when the lever comes back..
A bayonet is a really good choice for home-defense, because most people live in places where they can't safely shoot in some directions. Like, you're not gonna put a load of buckshot through your kid's bedroom wall bayonet charging a guy into said wall in your living room.
I did after trained quite a bit on my Ithaca Model 37 Riot gun in order to use slam fire effectively. It worked wonders once you got the timing down. Once you understand that the firing mechanism is the extension of the pump handle, it works just fine
I'm completely amazed that the 100 year old gun, with bayonet, actually kept up with the modern gun. Would like to see what a similar vintage pump can do without slam fire.
I have a 1933 Winchester 97 that's still so solid in its mechanical function that you'd have a hard time believing its almost a hundred years old. They're just so dang robust
@slade9372 well maintained and properly stored guns stay good. I've seen rusted quality doubles from just a few months in a too damp basement safe without desiccant
I can't help but feel the thousands of hours the guy has put into modern shotguns is more of a hindrance than a help with the 1897. I'd like to see a slew of greenhorns try each of them & what the numbers tell about their performance. Or at the very least, what Matt can do after a couple hundred hours acclimating to the slamfire tempo...
Watch Kentucky Ballistics video on slamfire shotguns. He does a short comparison on the fire rate of regular pump vs slam fire and it's a bit more of an equal comparison.
It reminded me of the time Miculek had some trouble running a Colt Python because he would pull the trigger again too quickly before it was fully reset
What you have proven is that a modern pump gun runs better than an early design pump gun. You should have compared the 1897 in slamefire mode to the 1897 in regular firing mode.
@@testermonkey2304 Exactly pump action still as reliable as it was over century ago. Probably would have been as effective as the modern one if the dude had any training on the 97
I think this video was a way to combat the people that over exaggerate the slam fire to such an extent that they shun the modern firearms as obsolete and that the 1897 slam fire is the best firearm to this day. That’s what this video disproves but I agree they could have done it better and more genuinely
If you really want to test it vs. a modern rifle, try a semi-auto... How fast can you move your trigger finger? I don´t really understand the US thing with the pump action. They´re perfectly fine with semi-auto rifles, why won´t they move on with the shotguns?
I think the muscle memory and general combat fitness of the most successful WW1 shotgunners is an underappreciated factor in this video. Intuitive aiming (like good no-sight archers) also could have been a huge factor. Idk if you have seen footage from the trenches of Ukraine, but sometimes there's this guy who takes an opportunity to jump in and clear a hole as a lone frontman. It's wild.
@@ieuanhunt552 Considering the conditions and physical activity levels of most 19 year old's today, it's funny that I'd think the middle aged fat man (IF more physically active despite being fat) is in much better fighting shape. In the end weight matters but not as much as performance. In the end whether heavy or light....how long does it take you to run a mile?
I agree that slam fire is not practical, but I think a better test would’ve been to run the 1897 both times, and make deliberate effort to use the slam fire on one go, and to not use it on the other
The trench '97 is just a civilian '97 with mods. I don't think John Browning designed the gun to have slam fire. I think he decided to NOT add a disconnect. I also think the Military grabbed the '97 because it was already in production and just needed a few mods to put into service, not because it was capable of slam fire.
It's somewhat akin to the publics fascination with full automatics, glock switches, drum magazines, and 33rd mags in their glocks.. even in full on close combat war scenario it is of very limited practical benefit, and mostly a hindrance or weak link in the chain. Yet the myths persist amongst gun store commandos everywhere.
A couple other things I haven't seen mentioned after the video, the 'slippage issue' Matt mentions about holding the wooden pump grip is easily rectified by wearing a quality leather glove, and secondly this firearm is Solid, feels good and capable and 20" barrel gives a fps advantage. Good groupings too, I often call my '97 a Rifle when I'm loaded with slugs.
Imagine coming out of a dugout, knowing that your trench is under attack, and hearing wham-wham-wham-wham from just around the corner. You'd be perturbed.
Not to mention that someone mentioned (I believe it was Ian in his video) that the Europeans weren't all that familiar with buckshot as the Americans were. I can see it being a shock to the system to see the damage a shotgun can make when you might be used to just using birdshot.
@@aggrodkreg4321Europeans definitely knew what buckshot was 😂 it's more that the wounds shotguns create are horrendous to fix, which is why the Germans complained.
ANY Winchester will work more reliably, accurately and safely than ANY remington ever built...I have had ZERO issues with any Winchester I've ever personally used or owned. The only gun I have ever had an unintentional discharge (at a range, pointed downrange, all safety rules observed, finger nowhere near the trigger) was a remington 700 in .270 Winchester. It just went off unexpectedly, without even being close to the trigger. My Dad claimed I was full of bologna (expletive deleted) and he asked to try it, then it did the same to him. I have never gotten rid of any gun I have ever owned besides that P.O.S. remington. It was the first and last one I will EVER own. I told the gunsmith at Gander Mountain when I traded it in that it was incredibly unsafe and needed serious attention. He said "Yeah ,remingtons arent known for having good triggers, you can have a Timney trigger installed, that helps." A trigger that cost more than the rifle...Any other firearm, (handgun, rifle, shotgun) from any other reputable manufacturer I have ever used has not ever fired without intentionally pulling the trigger. Buy a Winchester, a Ruger, a Colt, a Beretta, a Smith and Wesson, a Mossberg, a Savage, hell even any surplus military rifle. They are much safer and do not go bang unless you ask them to. remington makes decent ammo, but their guns totally suck ass
The Remington 870 police shotgun was originally slam fire or had that as an option. I used one in the P.D. in the 70s. Also we trained to slam fire from the hip or with the butt under the arm pinched to your side. Push the slide towards the target!. Slam fire was for close quarters only like in a jungle, thick hedgerows, hallways, warehouse isles (or a trench) where your movements are restricted by walls or obstacles. Hip fire allowed you to turn in place while keeping the barrel level and pushing the slip towards your target was accurate if the gun slam fired. When we transitioned to newer , safer , shotguns we had to retrain because, without the slam fire, our shots went low. But you are right about the risk of accidents. We had to train how to properly use the slam fire option.
I had a friend who much preferred to carry a slamfire shotgun when he was point on patrol in the VN jungle. It shredded bushes much better than a M-16.
I grew up with a 1897 field gun as a youngin hunting geese with my grampa. He showed me that the best way to reload them was to tip the gun upside down and basically plop the shell right onto the bottom of the bolt and then use your thumb to thrust it into the tube (The base of the 1897 bolt was slightly contoured so it almost guided shells into the loading tube) which is why when i was older I leaned towarda getting a Mossberg 590A1 as opposed to a Remington, the Mossberg having a reverse loading elevator which allows me to reload it much to the same way my grandfather showed me
Slamfire in NERF guns is practically useless in my opinion, you can still fire fast the normal way with better "accuracy". Horewer, I won't deny that it is fun as hell to slamfire all of your darts when I am just shooting at target!
The only variable I would've added was stress. A shotgun has extra steps in order to fire it. When you first start out (like I did) you forget to pull your finger off the trigger until you get a lot of practice with it. I think that's where the advantage might have came from.
grandfather would never go out hunting with more then 3 cartridge's in his pocket, always came back with a buck.... but that was to feed the family back then, his motto was if you needed more then one round to kill... your not a very good killer.. he was also in the "black death" squad of ww1... ground of snipers that wreaked havoc on enemy stickin theyre head outta trenches........
The issue with this though is that slam-firing can be somewhat hard on the locking surfaces. I've definitely tried it a few times just for fun on my Model 12s, but I've been told it can cause premature wear if it's done regularly. Especially on the Ithaca 37s, they have a small part called the "slide stop" which can get worn and fail if slam-firing. When that happens the gun can fire slightly out of battery and it is rather brutal on the lock-up surfaces.
@@dark2023-1lovesoni Sample size one but, my 1959 Model 12 has been slamfired by my father and now myself all it's life, and still shoots like a new one. Even if it broke tomorrow i would simply fix it and be good for another 50+ years haha.
I'm no scientist but I feel like having a novice or journeymen level shotgunner could produce a larger gap in results. Someone with I presume thousands or 10s of thousands of rounds through a disconnect type gun has trained the muscle memory for quick fire. Great video though and it produces some interesting results.
@@RedXlV novice shotguner, maybe best if they are competent with firearms safety in general. Anyway my main contention is that what is demonstrated here us not typical for a Doughboy from ww1 and to that point it would be very difficult to recreate that in a lab setting.
@@spikykittnot so hard, if one had the time and inclination. You would need say 10 volunteers with little to no firearm experience. Put them through WW1 basic training (I'm sure a historian could put together a reasonable approximation from training manuals of the day) You could skip all the physical training etc, just focus on the shooting bit. Split them into two groups of 5, have each of them face the same tests, one group being told to use slam fire, the other told to use the weapon in the usual way. Compare results. What you don't do is give a guy a gun he's trained with for dacades, fired in the normal way, and then compare that to the same guy with a strange gun and ask him to shoot it in an unfamiliar manner. That's not science, thats a straw man. It's the kind of test you design when you think you know the answer already, because it doesn't tell you anything and if they genuinely wanted to find out they would have noticed that.
You know one of my favorite things about you/your channel is your accountability about what you say. For instance your reference that you don’t have the training to make an experiment like this valid the way that having a well trained gunner does. In this day and age of “expertise “, I appreciate that you have fairly accurate statements about your skills, experience, and knowledge of your topic. You claim your expertise where it is warranted and not where it isn’t. Love coming back to your work.
The 97 is a noticeably well-balanced and agile handling gun compared to modern pumps, because the bolt coming out the back end of gun allows the action to be a couple inches shorter than later designs, and its mechanical bits to be sitting much closer to where they are in a double.
The issue, however, is that having the hammer and bolt exposed like that makes it more prone to fouling, which is why later shotguns like the Model 1912 and the Ithaca 37 have the hammer and bolt housed within the frame.
As my old department's firearms guy, I had a LOT of trigger time on several different makes of shotguns (most by far on the Rem870, but still). I dug out an Ithaca 37 that used to be in our issue rotation. This was a very comfortable gun to tote, but being a "featherweight" not the most fun to actually shoot. Anyway, it could slam-fire so after spending a day getting (ouch) used to it (ouch), I tried slam-firing some 5 round strings. I wasn't really any faster and might have gotten 2 of 5 shots on target. I'll take my disconnector equipped shotguns for serious work, thank-you very much. Great video with a cool visit with thoughts on combat from a few generations back.
back in the 80s I read the autobiography of a modern Great White Hunter based in Africa, of course he had his preferred choice of rifles and calibres for different game, but, if he had to follow a wounded big cat into elephant grass (sometimes as high as 10 or 12 feet, and dense) he switched to an Ithaca 37 with slamfire 8 round extended capacity loaded with buckshot the man must have had 'appendages' of steel
As much as I like the M37, I would NOT trust it to not jam due to the ease of short stroking that bottom eject. As the clock showed, slam fire matters very little to the end results.
I have used Ithaca 37s since childhood, and I am in my 60s now. I consider it the most reliable shotgun ever made, short stroking is not a defect of the gun, but the operator, by your standard no pump gun is reliable. I have one 4 feet fromme as I write, loaded with buckshot it has been my home defense gun for a long time.@@ringding1000
They used to do a lot of things with shotguns that we don’t do any more, like shooting from the hip. Slamfire from the hip should give a lot worse results, and I’d like to see that tested too.
I’d like to see a shotgun course with targets out to 100 meters in general. See how and when shooters choose to swap to slugs on the clock or take their their chances. 35 meters? 45 meters? Too often shotguns are limited to a few extremely close range shots in competition. You’d have to dissuade shooters from running the course with all slugs.
@@bigguy7353 Benelli M4 Tactical then. 18.5" instead of the 30" of the Winchester 1897 Standard. Shown in this video is, however, is the 1897 Trench, with 20". Close enough to the M4 Tactical. Whatever. To see the difference between a pump gun and a semiauto, just watch the late Tom Knapp. ua-cam.com/video/ajRydkuRPlg/v-deo.html TL;DR version: Pump shotgun (Benelli Nova Pump): 8 clay targets in 1.87 seconds Semiauto (Benelli M2 Field): 10 clay targets in 2.2 seconds. Semiauto (Benelli M1 Super 90): 9 clay targets in less than 2 seconds. With extended magazine tubes, obviously.
@@-John-Doe- Effective range is typically 50 meters with regular shot and maximum range is typically 150 meters with solid slugs (assuming typical competition shotguns).
I had a Winchester model 06 .22 pump that broke down via a thumb screw on the side of the receiver. Also known as a "gallery gun" as that style would have been seen at shooting galleries at local fairs. Loved the slamfire feature except to check the action the hammer needed to depress the firing pin to unlock the pump, if you didn't remember to take your finger off the trigger when closing the pump, let's just say as with all firearms you need to careful
Slamfire seems to be better for raw recruits who have to clear a trench bunker; the death grip on the trigger would become an advantage over him having to pump and pull.
@@dolsopolar exactly. If you are exposed to the repetition of training then the old common saying of "falling back to your training as second nature" is real. Slam firing is nowhere in any POI i've ever seen and as such should be chalked up to fudd lore hype.
With mine I notice the dramatic shift between trigger vs actuator ignition requires significant practice to keep the thing on target. Stabilization is reversed in "slam" mode, the right hand holds it steady and the left becomes the "trigger". With practice, time and ammo it can be useful, but quite awkward for a noob.
I think with regular loads Matt would trounce them. CAS competitors' power factors are absurdly low, less than half the minimum power factor for any current shooting sport with modern firearms. They won't go nearly as fast when they have to negotiate with the real deal.
But if we add single loading in the mix, the CA shooter might pull back ahead. With the single loading, we are acquiring target as we pull the action bar towards the target in a pointing motion and are on target as it fires from achieving battery.
Press trigger when ready to shoot. The benefit of slam-fire is that you can press the trigger if you're ready to shoot before the action has been closed. Watch some cowboy shooters single-feeding 97s and you'll also see some wild stuff.
@@justforever96The way I see the advantage of this is not about accuracy or speed, but eliminating a complication on a stressful situation (circling and synchronizing the trigger).
@justforever96 but the autos are preferred generally BECAUSE they have extra capabilities. I'd rather have capabilities in my gear that I can't take advantage of, than have my skill capped by less capable gear.
@@justforever96 I know of at least one cowboy shooter out there who doesn't consider slam-firing a "trick shot". It's just how you shoot a 97. There's no trick about it when that's how you learned to shoot it.
My father when he joined law enforcement back in the early 70s, the police academy taught all trainees how to properly slam fire an Ithaca Model 37 Featherweight if needed for crowd control. You would rotate the shotgun 90 degrees with the ejection/feed port facing inwards,. place the butt of the shotgun against the front of your holster/hip, point the shotgun to the left if you were right handed or right if your were left handed and then pull the trigger and rack the slide. The recoil of the shotgun would naturally pull the barrel of the shotgun on the opposite direction you initially pointed the shotgun. This allowed you to essentially spray the crowd with buckshot.
Honestly having an external hammer/striker is a big selling point to me. Being able to re-strike the primer without opening the action and risking an out of battery detonation is a nice safety bonus to have.
While it sounds sexy, I've never had a good functioning gun fail to set off a primer, factory or reload. Only issue I've had is weak hammer spring on a well used gun. Barring rimfire ammo, of course. And those I've never had a hangfire.
Honestly, hang fires aren't really a thing with modern centerfire ammo that has been handled with *anything* approaching "sanity". I've had some hang fires with .22LR that was old enough the box had a three character state abbreviation and no zip code on the company address. Amd I've had hangfires on some.1950s Pakistani production milsurp that looked like Indiana Jones would shout, "That belongs in a museum!"
@@geodkyt Glad its not just me with the Paki hangfires! Got an 8mm Mauser years ago an it "came with ammo" so I figured it'd be a good afternoon with a few buddies. Well, old mate behind the counter holds up two full bags of ammunition - all of it Paki milsurp. This stuff was comically bad with some hangfires almost the same delay as a flintlock. Click - BANG! Haha... good times.
I don't think it'd really change anything, but I'd liked to have seen Ian try to do all the drills as well just so we see a more realistic training level vs an expert. Love the video, keep it up!
I fell in love with '97s through cowboy action shooting. I had the advantage of being right handed and left eye dominant, keeping the shotgun shouldered while loading successive rounds. At one point I bought every one I saw come up for sale, ended up with 5 originals my safe plus a Chinese Norinco copy.
Slam Fire does work but it takes conditioning. Author and US Army veteran James Jones (From Here to Eternity) wrote that a member of his squad slam-fired his Model 97 (on Guadalcanal), killing five Japanese as fast as one could blink an eye. More impressive to Jones and the others in the squad is that the guy with the shotgun didn't even unsling his M1 Garand. BTW, my 97 - made in 1909 - is within arm's length of me now. (Other than a Model 12 trench gun) I'd still take it over anything offered. Indeed, John Browning designed his guns to ". . . last a life-time," as he put it. They've lasted FAR longer than that.
That's what I was thinking. Conditioning, and of course the stress of your life actually being on the line would/could infact motivate one's brain and muscle memory to learn to be better, faster with a feature like slamfire. This test should also have been conducted in a trench setting; not open ground.
I started playing paintball in the 1980s when all the paintball guns were pump actuated. Eventually people developed "auto triggers" for them, which functioned the same as slam fire. Shots on auto trigger were not accurate (as accurate as paintballs get) or really any faster. The only advantage they had is when you surprised a group of the other team and could unload until your Co2 or paint tube ran out. It was glorious when this happened. But that was more due to the "Rambo feeling" it gave you than actual effectiveness
This. Plus from my understanding you "hip" fired. because this was a case of First one that put bullets down range wins ether by hitting or shaking them so that they drop the gun, fumbles the action, or just loses there ability to aim beyond wild hip fire into the roof. you had a buddy behind you that would sweep in if you missed one (that usally was ether leeping for cover or wildly shooting at nothing).
@@tutzdesYT In the context of WW1 they had barely practiced at all. The average US infantryman had like 6 weeks of training with outdated techniques, and it showed - we had some of the worst trained, least experienced troops on the Western front.
@@browncoat697Did it? I mean, when I think of the US in the western front, I think of things like the Battle of Belleau Wood, the 82nd, the Harlem Helfighters, the battle of the Argonne, the US troops out advancing the rest of the armies to such a degree that their flanks became exposed, "Retreat? Hell, we just got here!" The US had 6 months of training prior to WW1, not 6 weeks. I couldn't find any concrete numbers for training duration for the Germans or French during 1918, but I'm gonna go with it's significantly less, just because they have their borders being fought over.
Now try the slam-fire while hip shooting. That is where it shines. They used to teach that in the Police Academy for close-in shooting. We also used Ithaca M37's DPS shotguns and their action is much faster than the 1897. If Ian would recreate this with that shotgun (early Ithacas had no disconnector) it would prove interesting.
So I think what Ian was explaining was ww1 where it was said the shotgun when slam fired could put 5 shots down range in less than 3 seconds, it was also that shotgun that made Germans fear it and during ww1 Germany tried to claim shotguns were a war crime (while they used mustard gas)
@@lockinhinddanger934 Except people are all overlooking one thing. The ammunition. In 1917 and 1918 shotgun ammunition was not the same as it is now, specifically when it comes to the casing. It ws a form of stiff waxed cardboard, it was NOT plastic as modern shotgun cartridges are. And THAT is where the problems lay, and why most US troops actually issued with the shotguns tended to 'lose' them in fairly short order and replace them with Enfield 1917's or Springfield 1903's. Have many of you been to North Western Europe? It rains here, a lot, even during the summer. Without specialist ammunition containers (which the American troops were NOT issued) the ammunition would get damp. Carried loose in the pockets it would also get deformed as troops took cover. Ammunition in the magazine like ammunition carried in the pockets would get damp. In short, the misfire rate was horrendous. Slamfiring into a trench ONLY works if all your shells go boom, if most of them fail to do so what you have is not a weapon useful for clearing trenches but a damned liability. In ALL of the attempt on YT and in literature to claim how useful those shotguns were in in WWI ALL of them use MODERN ammunition. NONE of them use the ammunition ACTUALLY supplied. It is why every single one is wrong.... There was nothing wrong with the shotgun, but the ammunition was temperamental and prone to misfires in the conditions found on the Western Front. This ide that the Americans and only the Americans had figured out to use shotguns in the Trenches is, I am afraid, also a myth, both the British and French experimented with them but those experiments never got beyond testing at home. They were all failures, because of the ammunition....
I have an incredible fondness for the MOD97 12GA. When I was 13 I went on my first duck hunt, dad gave me a MOD 97 with a long barrel to use. We had an awesome opening weekend and the 4 of use took a limit each day in N AZ. At one point a pair of redhead drakes came bombing over our decoys left to right at full bore afterburner speed. I saw them in time to acquire, track and engage the birds cycling that old pump fast enough to drop the both before they could exit stage right. Later I hunted with MOD 12 pumps and when on my game could drop three dove out of a passing flights cycling that classic Winchester pump.
Really interesting video! Matt Haught is an absolute beast with these shotguns. I would argue that the second trial, with a bunch of germans huddled together in a trench, is the place where the slam fire would've/could've been used in the war and was the most useful experiment. The last trial, with targets spread out with a good few feet or yards apart, I don't think anyone arguing in favor of the slam fire strategy would intend it to be used there. Still, I really liked the thoroughness of this experiment... with one pretty big exception. As Ian pointed out very early on, it seemed the benefits gained from using the non-slamfire technique were not actually technique related, but equipment related. This makes it a bit of an apples to oranges comparison, and while it's really cool that using a 125 year old gun with a less advantageous technique is only barely slower than using a modern gun with all the tactical bells and whistles, I think it detracts from the point the test was trying to make because you've failed to isolate the variable in question. As other comments have pointed out, a third run on each set of targets should've been completed with the 1897 ran in the "traditional" technique to provide an actual "control" datapoint
Per the ergonomics of the smaller pump handle is that (in general) people were smaller sized back then at turn of 20th century due to lack of healthcare and vitamins that would only change in post World War 2 era. As an example General Eisenhower's personal security detail was made up of men 6' or taller which was more rare back then even in World War Two 20 years after World War One.
That's a fair point. We're so well fed in the US that about half of Americans are obese (as of latest census). America turn of the 1900's was not an overweight society.
What I love most about these videos is that I was born, raised and reside just 2 square miles from Ian's local gun shop, which isn't mine particularly shop but just mere walking distance. These videos simply feel like home to me. Just like another day out with the boys shooting. Could very well be at the same well known local shooting spot everyone has used forever Nostalgia
While I largely agree with this video, two things: One, I promise you my Marine Corps trained with their weapons. I promise you they did. The Army I don't know, but I know the Marine Corps DID. Two, get a cowboy action shooter out there to run alongside a modern expert and let's see what happens. I'm not going to lie, I feel the results will be about the same. But I've seen those cowboy action shooters do some magical things with those 1897's and it would be fun to watch. Great video other than those minor things.
From what I've seen, the usefulness of slamfire seems to be inversely proportional to the skill of the user. I.E The less practiced and less trained the user is, the more they'll be able to get out of slam fire and inversely, the more well trained and practiced the shotgunner is, the more diminishing returns you'll get from using it. A well trained shotgunner can work the action of the gun properly and achieve just as good a fire rate as if he were slam firing.
I dont know i think quite the opposite, i have a model 12 that slamfires, and out of stubborn determination i wanted to get good at it, It can be quicker than conventional shooting but only with alot of practace, because in the process of bringing the pump forward its easy to throw your aim. after sacrificeing many cases of cheap birdshot, i can say comfortably my slamfire times are infact faster, but it requires far more concentration to aim and kind of requires a shooting form of its own. Only real practical use i could see would be bird hunting, because the thing is while it is quicker, its not *much* quicker, and it requires focus that i cannot imagine youd have while being shot at also doing it accurately at any kind of distance requires shooting from a stand still, which again, does not seem conducive to surviveing a war.
To be fair, it would be a much better test if you did the non-slam fire shooting with the 1897. It would eliminate the variables of the 870 being more modern, smoother, and more familiar to the shooter, and so that would no longer have to be a caveat. After all, you don’t have to slam fire the 1897. I see no reason to not do both kinds of shooting with the same shotgun. You might have the same results, but they would be more valid, as the test would be fairer and more scientific.
The problem is that to not slamfire you have to be sure you release the trigger before you slam the slide back forwards, and that will slow you down more than using a non-slamfire capable gun unless you've had lots of practice.
@@CrazyMegaOmega Which they didn't achieve at all, they straw manned slamfire by putting the shooter on a weapon he's intimately familiar with vs a weapon he clearly hadn't ran before.
Yes it's slamfire thats why my firsr pump shootgun in 1977 was a Winchester 1897 and i really love it . one more gun that will slamfire is the Wichester 906 & Rossi old model 62 wlii shooting 22 CB.S.L.LR is a lot of fun to, i got my Rossi 62 in 1982 love it to . but my kids keep trying to get both of them from me , Thank you for video .
9:41 As a US sailor on security guard duty, with a shotgun in 1979, our GMG1 (A Vietnam PBR Vet) taught us to aim at the ship's STEEL deck in front of the enemy to spread the buckshot pattern. -don't work in a trench though. LOL.
I have a 1897 takedown model with 2 barrels. My gramps bought it just before the 1928 depression, then it was my dads, and then mine. Ive slam fired it many times just for fun.
I don't think it'll make a difference but trying a round where he uses the old shotty but doesn't slam fire would be nice just as a control. But it probably doesn't make a difference. Just curious how much the ergonomics of the new model change things.
That guy is right about lack of disconnectors throughout the early shotguns. The Remington Model 31 and the Steven's Model 520 and 620A trench and riot guns also used by the military in WWII lacked the disconnectors as well.
Great episode and I think your conclusion is spot on. However, it probably would have made more sense to run the 1897 conventionally against the slam-fire run, versus introducing a modern shotgun, especially the demonstrator's person one.
Whole thing is flawed you have the shooter running a weapon their intimately familiar with vs a weapon they clearly haven't even had a full range day on. There's really no conclusions you can pull form a test like this other than the shooter is slightly better with a system they're familiar with which is like no shit sherlock.
@@n00bist723 Funny enough I think a better example of a standard Pump vs Slam fire experiment is Kentucky Ballistics video on slamfire shotguns. Scott uses shotguns a lot but he's not a wizard that's as skilled as Matt so the comparison between shotguns is more even. Scott uses a standard Mossberg, an Ithaca, and a Winchester Model 1912. Here's the times Scott got for the comparison: Mossberg: 3.96 seconds Ithaca (Slam Fire): 2.28 seconds Winchester (Slam Fire): 3.28 seconds Scott messed up racking one of the shots for the Winchester also but still got a slightly higher speed than the Mossberg. Keep in mind this is done as a pure speed test rather than aiming for targets.
It's a different kind of action as he mentions. You fire on close, not on trigger press. It's useful in a "empty the tube" kinda scenario, but you still get the ability to release the trigger & cycle the action for aimed fire.
Why testing this with two separate weapons and not with a single weapon that allows both techniques? It seems like a lot of other factors (weight, ergonomics, gun mechanics and build quality) could add or substract from the final result.
probably mentioned here somewhere in the zillion comments but he should have run the winchester with slamfire and then doing it releasing the trigger as if it did have a disconnector. That way it's not familiar vs. unfamiliar shotgun, it's just the two firing methods.
The Stevens 520 series (and Ranger and JC Higgins offshoots) were also a Browning design. I didn’t know my worn Stevens was slam fire capable until missing on a rabbit one day, and upon chambering the second shell, dropped it. Our brave presenters also criticized the ergonomics of the 1897’s stock design. Personally, I find the 20’s and 30’s grips MUCH easier to carry long distances because your hand isn’t cramped into a tight curve. These designs weren’t accidental or primitive in any way.
I'd be willing to bet that the hype around slamfire with the 1897, much like the hype around the Thompson, came more from use by Prohibition-era mob muscle than war time usage. I imagine a rip from the 1897 into an office would make quite a mess.
Slamfire is a lot like full-auto: harder to control, but if you don't know how to aim then more shots = more chances to hit the target Also for groups of enemies (e.g. trench sweeping) rate of fire is the most important thing
8:22 but but... ALL games clearly show us that the spread of even the longest shotgun is gigantic, which means it should cover everything and also basically be useless beyond melee range
I remember as a kid, short stroking my 870 every once in a while and getting a shell caught in the ejector; especially, when like a bird suprised me. So, I can see slam firing being more risky than helpful under pressure.
Even though there's some slightly better ergonomics and handling of modern shotguns, it's easy to see why the 1897 was so effective and feared in the war.
There's a strong factor that isn't being considered: Coordination. When you're 17 or 18 in a trench with a line of guys coming down on you, you might not have the best ability to keep multiple motions in quick line. Rather than straight speed, it's much easier to make a single repetitive motion. Less risk of user error.
i have heard a few of my friends who were in the navy say this quote about shooting fast, "slow is smooth, and smooth is fast." they got it from the SEALs.
Crazy idea: maybe a better test would be to test it with someone with not that much experience with shotguns. Your average WWI soldier would most likely be a baker with no prior experience.
Or a side by side comparison with a cowboy action shooter who is proficient in slam fire to remove some of platform training bias Might have reached the same conclusion, but I'd trust it more coming from someone who's used the technique on the clock for more than 3 runs previously
My brother did the same thing, he had a modern pump shotgun, removed the choke and magazine plug and used it as a punt gun/blunderbuss to shoot a bunch of snowgeese!
I've actually got a WW1 trench broom 100% complete with bayonet and sling thanks to my grandfather who served with the 82nd infantry in WW1, it's a little ( very little) banged up due to it being over 100 years old but it's still tight and shoots great, I have 30 rounds of brass cased 12ga 00 buck that I had loaded by a friend of mine just for it, I only fire low brass modern ammo through it to minimize recoil on the old girl but she will still out shoot alot of modern guns on the tactical course.
Before I continue to watch. My theory is slam fire has minimal benefit when used by a proficient user. I could imagine it being more beneficial to someone who has minimal experience with pump action shotguns.
Haveing a model 12 that slamfires and immediately going about testing this after my purchase, with practice via haveing 3 man sized targets about 20 yards off fireing to hit each one twice in one run, slam fireing is marginally faster. but the key is you need to practace the motion enough that your not throwing your aim when you do it, theres a wierd motion and cadence about it where your basically pushing the gun down into the pump so you end up at roughly the point you started before recoil. how practical that would be when getting shot at? dont know, probably was useful for birdhunting back before semis where super commonplace
Very interesting that they mention the Model 12. That was the first gun that I ever owned, it was a birthday gift when I was 14. At 16, out on a skeet range, I wasn't fully paying attention and accidentally slam fired the gun and nearly took my foot off. I'm 27 now, I had largely forgotten about that until he mentioned the Model 12 was capable of slam fire. 16 year old me had no idea.
An argument could be made that the concept of slamfire would be useful in the context of the user being someone with limited training and not that much regard to actually aim their shots, just dumping it all down in the general direction of the target. Basically just squeaze the gun stock under your armpit and pin it down with the arm, hold down the trigger and have the left hand do all the work. Aim by feel alone and in the literal sense, spray and pray.
When I enlisted in the Marine Corps in 68 there were still some WWII Marines around finishing out 30 year tours. One, a Master Gunny armorer, when I asked him about an old model 1897 in the back of the armory told me that the only real benefit of slam fire was that they were easy to use when you were scared witless. All you had to do was hold the trigger down and pump the action. I don't do it all the time but occasionally it's fun to see how quickly I pump a tube of ammo through my 16 gauge 1910 model 97.
I think Slamfire only really had a psychological advantage. Imagine what a Kraut felt and thought when he saw some 17 year old Yankee jump into a trench and just rapidly crank off 5 shots into a group of your allies then rush you with the sword on the end of the bangstick, and what few survivors of this encounter would tell to their friends on the back lines. Imagine what the young American felt when he devastated a group of Germans within 3 seconds with that gun, and what he told Sarge when he regrouped with the rest of his platoon.
16:50 There's this video of exactly this sort of negligent discharge that lives in my head rent free, where some guy in an apartment with an 1897 neglects to ensure his magazine is empty and proceeds to slam-fire a round into the ceiling, in a crowded apartment, while explaining and demonstrating that the 1897 has slam-fire.
I really like your guy's work but this test was flawed the moment the shooter disclosed that he's intimately familiar with one of the test weapons and as evident by his first runs completely unfamiliar with the other. Nothing this video shows or concludes has any significant weight to it. It's also pretty evident from some of the things you've said you have bias against the weapon that the shooter is weaker with this is a strawman at best.
You didn’t touch on the teenager being sent to a different country, being handed a gun and told “your fighting for your life, don’t screw up or we all die”, the kind of stress that puts a kid under would lead to all kinds of coordination errors, I imagine just gripping the trigger for dear life and working the action removes some error possibly
The 1 only great thing of slam firing is its prominent use for Nerf guns. Nerf guns don’t use true automatic loading systems like recoil or gas operation as the projectile fired is just a foam dart. So, the slam firing actually helps a Nerf gun to fire faster but requiring the user to manually cycle the action. Nevertheless, it’s the best known way other than using external power of batteries.
I own a Model 12 and having practiced slam fire quite a bit, i can see what it was useful for. I can dump a full tube +1 into a man size target from the hip at the sort of ranges you would encounter some enemies who snuck into your trench. It does take practice to learn to do it well. The gun bucks each shot and you pull down and forward as you cycle it to keep it on target. It's a lot like riding a bucking horse haha. But it's definitely faster and accurate enough for that sort of job. Doing it from the shoulder, i would say is less useful. But, i have seen a really old Winchester ad where a pro shooter tossed a handful of clays in the air and slamfired every single one. The man was so fast at aiming that he was using the slamfire feature purely for speed. Practice up and try this again. It IS faster, but it's also a skill that must be learned and practiced. And try it from the hip too! It's a lot of fun and shows the true utility of the feature.
Doesn’t seem like a very scientific test at all. Like yeah, dude is gonna be able to shoot way better with a weapon he’s intimately familiar with than a gun he’s never shot before.
As an airsoft player who started on a pump action shotgun replica I knew beforehand that the slam fire has no merit. My replica didn't have a slam fire and I learned pretty quickly to synchronize the pumping and pressing the trigger right after each other. Also closing the action by the supporting hand is way more disruptive than open bolt guns shooting. So you need to stay on target while closing. With no chance of correction if closing the action throws your aim too off. If you need to press the trigger you can afford a few milliseconds to correct your aim. Without slam fire there is the danger of you getting out of sync and pulling the trigger too soon, so you'd have to reset the trigger - you'd lose time that way. But I don't think that happened to me ever - and in airsoft scirmish there is the element of stress / adrenalin closer to that of real battle - you go fast not because you are trying to go fast, but because you need to go fast. That is also quite significant difference (as shown even in the video here on the first stage - he messed up some shots because he was trying to go faster).
I would agree that the effectiveness/usefulness of slamfire is pretty overstated. That said, even if properly aiming and deliberately firing each shot would have technically been more effective, I'd be willing to bet that seeing an American WW1 soldier jump into an enemy trench and empty an 1897's entire tube in just a couple seconds must have made quite an impression on Europeans who formerly thought of shotguns just as double-barreled break-actions that their grandpappys used to hunt birds.
Ask the old timers about Model 97's in daily, practical hunting use. They are inherently dangerous when carried with loaded chamber due to the exposed hammer. I probably will get boos on that but it is a fact, especially with old well-worn specimens. Still a great gun and immensely interesting, just takes some extra thinking when handling it. Great video!!!
The Remington model 10 was NOT an ancestor to the Ithaca 37. The direct predecessor to the Ithaca 37 was the Remington model 17. The Remington 10 was modernized into the model 29 while the Remington 17 was modernized into the model 31. The Model 31 then led, indirectly, to the simplified 870 and even more indirectly to the Mossberg 500. The Remington 17 was John Browning and JD Pedersen's magnum opus. Browning initially wanted to sell Winchester a pump action instead of the lever action that became the 1887. Winchester took 10 years to realize that pump action was where it was at. Browning went on to design another pump action, the Stevens 520, before perfecting it with the Remington 17.
He should have also run the 1897 non slam fire just to eliminate the modern ergos. So three runs on each course of fire.
You were writing while I was watching. I was thinking the exact same thing, though.
Off to nuke a comment.
Yeah I don't understand the point of the comparison at all if there is no non-slamfire on the trench gun
@@Pat4ever. I feel it would show just what impact modern ergos have to performance. Just a better hand guard may be better then slamfire,
Yep definitely an unequal and unfair test here. The modern gun should not have even been included in the test, it had no relevance whatsoever other than showing modern ergonomics improve handling. The question was "Does slamfire make a difference?" so the test should have been a run using slam fire and a run not using slam fire by releasing the trigger, but using the same trench gun on each test. This showed nothing but modern ergonomics saves time.
It's also the fact that the 870 is something he is more familiar with, and was faster just through training alone
I think this test was somewhat bungled
Trench owner here. My observation is that he has more practice with the modern gun amd therefore that is why he is faster with it. Slamfire can be accurate if you practice. Ive done competitions with friends and not only does the slam fire shoot faster, you can be accurate as well. Just gotta get that muscle memory.
Yeah, it'd be nice if they got actual experts instead of the nearest overweight american who's used great uncle gandpappy's old trench gun to go frog giggin' back in the summer of '82
The biggest takeaway to me was that he had more experience and time behind the modern shotgun. If you had given him equal time on the trench gun it would have been a fairer comparison. End of the day, pick a system you're comfortable and quick with and train train train.
Practice makes perfect!
Same thought. If you ever see how those guys with lever action rifle do fast shooting, they do it without hiccups, and they're accurate. They also don't load before shooting. They rack the level back when they shoot
@@thedesignerblacksmith5953 Can you do this with leveraction rifles as well? How? I can´t do it on mine, because my trigger finger is on the hand that rocks the lever... However, I can pull that trigger instantly when the lever comes back..
Customer: Man this shotgun is super sweet, I just wish it had a place to mount my sword.
Salesman: You’re not going to believe this…
Home-Offense weapon
A bayonet is a really good choice for home-defense, because most people live in places where they can't safely shoot in some directions. Like, you're not gonna put a load of buckshot through your kid's bedroom wall bayonet charging a guy into said wall in your living room.
@@Trent-m6j #6 birdshot is great for this
@@Trent-m6jit could work people did it but man I feel like I'd probably get shot down charging the guy.
*slaps heat shield*
I did after trained quite a bit on my Ithaca Model 37 Riot gun in order to use slam fire effectively. It worked wonders once you got the timing down. Once you understand that the firing mechanism is the extension of the pump handle, it works just fine
The Ithaca 37 was available both with and without the Disconnector mechanism.
I'm completely amazed that the 100 year old gun, with bayonet, actually kept up with the modern gun.
Would like to see what a similar vintage pump can do without slam fire.
I have a 1933 Winchester 97 that's still so solid in its mechanical function that you'd have a hard time believing its almost a hundred years old. They're just so dang robust
good guns stay good
@@adamniehaus5835 the handguard is not, so be carefull with that
@slade9372 well maintained and properly stored guns stay good. I've seen rusted quality doubles from just a few months in a too damp basement safe without desiccant
its a shotgun, blasting lead always works, its a manually fed mechanism, not much to go wrong
I can't help but feel the thousands of hours the guy has put into modern shotguns is more of a hindrance than a help with the 1897.
I'd like to see a slew of greenhorns try each of them & what the numbers tell about their performance.
Or at the very least, what Matt can do after a couple hundred hours acclimating to the slamfire tempo...
Watch Kentucky Ballistics video on slamfire shotguns. He does a short comparison on the fire rate of regular pump vs slam fire and it's a bit more of an equal comparison.
It reminded me of the time Miculek had some trouble running a Colt Python because he would pull the trigger again too quickly before it was fully reset
What you have proven is that a modern pump gun runs better than an early design pump gun. You should have compared the 1897 in slamefire mode to the 1897 in regular firing mode.
He should retitle the video modern pump not significantly better than 120 year old pump design
@@testermonkey2304 Exactly pump action still as reliable as it was over century ago. Probably would have been as effective as the modern one if the dude had any training on the 97
I think this video was a way to combat the people that over exaggerate the slam fire to such an extent that they shun the modern firearms as obsolete and that the 1897 slam fire is the best firearm to this day. That’s what this video disproves but I agree they could have done it better and more genuinely
If you really want to test it vs. a modern rifle, try a semi-auto... How fast can you move your trigger finger? I don´t really understand the US thing with the pump action. They´re perfectly fine with semi-auto rifles, why won´t they move on with the shotguns?
semi auto shotguns jam a lot and cost 5x without making you shoot all that much faster. Difference is like .17s to .26s @@olenilsen4660
I think the muscle memory and general combat fitness of the most successful WW1 shotgunners is an underappreciated factor in this video.
Intuitive aiming (like good no-sight archers) also could have been a huge factor.
Idk if you have seen footage from the trenches of Ukraine, but sometimes there's this guy who takes an opportunity to jump in and clear a hole as a lone frontman. It's wild.
Yeah a fat middle aged guy vs a fit lean and mean 19 year old in a do or die scenario.
@@ieuanhunt552 The fat part helps him a lot, a lighter man would have much more trouble absorbing the recoil of 5 12g shots in such a short time.
@@Vercingetorix45underrated comment.
@@ieuanhunt552 Considering the conditions and physical activity levels of most 19 year old's today, it's funny that I'd think the middle aged fat man (IF more physically active despite being fat) is in much better fighting shape. In the end weight matters but not as much as performance. In the end whether heavy or light....how long does it take you to run a mile?
@Mr.Brewer83 7-8 minute mile. Did the Cardiff Half Marathon in under 3 hours.
Below average I'll admit but I'm happy with that.
I agree that slam fire is not practical, but I think a better test would’ve been to run the 1897 both times, and make deliberate effort to use the slam fire on one go, and to not use it on the other
I agree in theory that you should keep the variables to a minimum.
But I think that muscle memory would cause the test to be flawed.
The trench '97 is just a civilian '97 with mods. I don't think John Browning designed the gun to have slam fire. I think he decided to NOT add a disconnect. I also think the Military grabbed the '97 because it was already in production and just needed a few mods to put into service, not because it was capable of slam fire.
And as others have suggested, probably should get an 1897 expert to run it. An upgraded 870 wasn't really an option in the first world war.
It's somewhat akin to the publics fascination with full automatics, glock switches, drum magazines, and 33rd mags in their glocks.. even in full on close combat war scenario it is of very limited practical benefit, and mostly a hindrance or weak link in the chain. Yet the myths persist amongst gun store commandos everywhere.
@@RUBIZENstop being realistic
A couple other things I haven't seen mentioned after the video, the 'slippage issue' Matt mentions about holding the wooden pump grip is easily rectified by wearing a quality leather glove, and secondly this firearm is Solid, feels good and capable and 20" barrel gives a fps advantage. Good groupings too, I often call my '97 a Rifle when I'm loaded with slugs.
I imagine half the mystique of slam firing came from being on the receiving end. morale damage might outweigh the physical.
Imagine coming out of a dugout, knowing that your trench is under attack, and hearing wham-wham-wham-wham from just around the corner. You'd be perturbed.
@@AshleyPomeroy "Perturbed", lol! Indeed...
Not to mention that someone mentioned (I believe it was Ian in his video) that the Europeans weren't all that familiar with buckshot as the Americans were. I can see it being a shock to the system to see the damage a shotgun can make when you might be used to just using birdshot.
@@aggrodkreg4321Europeans definitely knew what buckshot was 😂 it's more that the wounds shotguns create are horrendous to fix, which is why the Germans complained.
I do not think that external observer is able to distinguish slam fire from just a quick trigger finger.
He needs to have the 97 sbout a month to train with it. Not to shabby for show-up and shoot compared to the 870 that he’s intimately familiar with.
ANY Winchester will work more reliably, accurately and safely than ANY remington ever built...I have had ZERO issues with any Winchester I've ever personally used or owned. The only gun I have ever had an unintentional discharge (at a range, pointed downrange, all safety rules observed, finger nowhere near the trigger) was a remington 700 in .270 Winchester. It just went off unexpectedly, without even being close to the trigger. My Dad claimed I was full of bologna (expletive deleted) and he asked to try it, then it did the same to him. I have never gotten rid of any gun I have ever owned besides that P.O.S. remington. It was the first and last one I will EVER own. I told the gunsmith at Gander Mountain when I traded it in that it was incredibly unsafe and needed serious attention. He said "Yeah ,remingtons arent known for having good triggers, you can have a Timney trigger installed, that helps." A trigger that cost more than the rifle...Any other firearm, (handgun, rifle, shotgun) from any other reputable manufacturer I have ever used has not ever fired without intentionally pulling the trigger. Buy a Winchester, a Ruger, a Colt, a Beretta, a Smith and Wesson, a Mossberg, a Savage, hell even any surplus military rifle. They are much safer and do not go bang unless you ask them to. remington makes decent ammo, but their guns totally suck ass
The Remington 870 police shotgun was originally slam fire or had that as an option. I used one in the P.D. in the 70s. Also we trained to slam fire from the hip or with the butt under the arm pinched to your side. Push the slide towards the target!. Slam fire was for close quarters only like in a jungle, thick hedgerows, hallways, warehouse isles (or a trench) where your movements are restricted by walls or obstacles. Hip fire allowed you to turn in place while keeping the barrel level and pushing the slip towards your target was accurate if the gun slam fired. When we transitioned to newer , safer , shotguns we had to retrain because, without the slam fire, our shots went low. But you are right about the risk of accidents. We had to train how to properly use the slam fire option.
I had a friend who much preferred to carry a slamfire shotgun when he was point on patrol in the VN jungle. It shredded bushes much better than a M-16.
Sorry to say, your 870 did not have slam fire.
@@billpoynter108 probably was an Ithaca 37. Those did not have a trigger disconnect like the Winchester.
We had a few various models in my unit over in Korea back in 89-90. All could slam-fire. It would be useful in a defensive situation.
I have a 1957 wingmaster that was a police gun and it cannot slamfire
I grew up with a 1897 field gun as a youngin hunting geese with my grampa. He showed me that the best way to reload them was to tip the gun upside down and basically plop the shell right onto the bottom of the bolt and then use your thumb to thrust it into the tube (The base of the 1897 bolt was slightly contoured so it almost guided shells into the loading tube) which is why when i was older I leaned towarda getting a Mossberg 590A1 as opposed to a Remington, the Mossberg having a reverse loading elevator which allows me to reload it much to the same way my grandfather showed me
Personally, I love slamfire for my NERF guns but not much else.
Nerf guns trained every young man how to slam fire.
Slamfire in NERF guns is practically useless in my opinion, you can still fire fast the normal way with better "accuracy". Horewer, I won't deny that it is fun as hell to slamfire all of your darts when I am just shooting at target!
slamfire is questionable on the dart-firing ones, however it was very cool on the Pyragon due to its discs ricocheting off walls.
You guys were spoiled.
Only had beans/glove finger guns and slingshots when I grew up 😂
You can totally fan the hammer action revolvers though and that stuff is cool as hell.
The only variable I would've added was stress. A shotgun has extra steps in order to fire it. When you first start out (like I did) you forget to pull your finger off the trigger until you get a lot of practice with it. I think that's where the advantage might have came from.
Was just about to say this. And there's not much stress higher than storming an enemy trench
I had a friend who was a WW2 vet. He did use slam fire from a pre 64 model 12 while bird hunting, and he loved it. For what it’s worth.
That's what they were intended for.
grandfather would never go out hunting with more then 3 cartridge's in his pocket, always came back with a buck.... but that was to feed the family back then, his motto was if you needed more then one round to kill... your not a very good killer..
he was also in the "black death" squad of ww1... ground of snipers that wreaked havoc on enemy stickin theyre head outta trenches........
The issue with this though is that slam-firing can be somewhat hard on the locking surfaces. I've definitely tried it a few times just for fun on my Model 12s, but I've been told it can cause premature wear if it's done regularly. Especially on the Ithaca 37s, they have a small part called the "slide stop" which can get worn and fail if slam-firing. When that happens the gun can fire slightly out of battery and it is rather brutal on the lock-up surfaces.
@@dark2023-1lovesoni Sample size one but, my 1959 Model 12 has been slamfired by my father and now myself all it's life, and still shoots like a new one. Even if it broke tomorrow i would simply fix it and be good for another 50+ years haha.
@@dark2023-1lovesoni I have literally 10s of thousands rounds slam firing a 97 in competition and still working just fine.
The heat shield does a good job, almost like it's designed that way "huh weird"
Made me laugh 😂
I'm no scientist but I feel like having a novice or journeymen level shotgunner could produce a larger gap in results. Someone with I presume thousands or 10s of thousands of rounds through a disconnect type gun has trained the muscle memory for quick fire. Great video though and it produces some interesting results.
The problem is that a novice is also the one most likely to have a negligent discharge with a slamfire-capable shotgun.
Yeah, my understanding is hobbyists/enthusiasts typically have more practice than the average soldier
@@RedXlVnegligent discharge is less dangerous than failing to fire at someone charging you with a knife or bayonet
@@RedXlV novice shotguner, maybe best if they are competent with firearms safety in general. Anyway my main contention is that what is demonstrated here us not typical for a Doughboy from ww1 and to that point it would be very difficult to recreate that in a lab setting.
@@spikykittnot so hard, if one had the time and inclination. You would need say 10 volunteers with little to no firearm experience. Put them through WW1 basic training (I'm sure a historian could put together a reasonable approximation from training manuals of the day) You could skip all the physical training etc, just focus on the shooting bit.
Split them into two groups of 5, have each of them face the same tests, one group being told to use slam fire, the other told to use the weapon in the usual way. Compare results.
What you don't do is give a guy a gun he's trained with for dacades, fired in the normal way, and then compare that to the same guy with a strange gun and ask him to shoot it in an unfamiliar manner. That's not science, thats a straw man. It's the kind of test you design when you think you know the answer already, because it doesn't tell you anything and if they genuinely wanted to find out they would have noticed that.
You know one of my favorite things about you/your channel is your accountability about what you say. For instance your reference that you don’t have the training to make an experiment like this valid the way that having a well trained gunner does. In this day and age of “expertise “, I appreciate that you have fairly accurate statements about your skills, experience, and knowledge of your topic. You claim your expertise where it is warranted and not where it isn’t. Love coming back to your work.
The 97 is a noticeably well-balanced and agile handling gun compared to modern pumps, because the bolt coming out the back end of gun allows the action to be a couple inches shorter than later designs, and its mechanical bits to be sitting much closer to where they are in a double.
#couldntagreemore
The issue, however, is that having the hammer and bolt exposed like that makes it more prone to fouling, which is why later shotguns like the Model 1912 and the Ithaca 37 have the hammer and bolt housed within the frame.
I don’t know about useful but it’s definitely fun.
As my old department's firearms guy, I had a LOT of trigger time on several different makes of shotguns (most by far on the Rem870, but still). I dug out an Ithaca 37 that used to be in our issue rotation. This was a very comfortable gun to tote, but being a "featherweight" not the most fun to actually shoot. Anyway, it could slam-fire so after spending a day getting (ouch) used to it (ouch), I tried slam-firing some 5 round strings. I wasn't really any faster and might have gotten 2 of 5 shots on target. I'll take my disconnector equipped shotguns for serious work, thank-you very much.
Great video with a cool visit with thoughts on combat from a few generations back.
back in the 80s I read the autobiography of a modern Great White Hunter based in Africa, of course he had his preferred choice of rifles and calibres for different game, but, if he had to follow a wounded big cat into elephant grass (sometimes as high as 10 or 12 feet, and dense) he switched to an Ithaca 37 with slamfire 8 round extended capacity loaded with buckshot the man must have had 'appendages' of steel
@@markcarrell8053nice.
"We're being hunted...."
"....clever girl."
**gunfire / screaming**
As much as I like the M37, I would NOT trust it to not jam due to the ease of short stroking that bottom eject. As the clock showed, slam fire matters very little to the end results.
That would've been Capstick in Death in the Long Grass.
I have used Ithaca 37s since childhood, and I am in my 60s now. I consider it the most reliable shotgun ever made, short stroking is not a defect of the gun, but the operator, by your standard no pump gun is reliable. I have one 4 feet fromme as I write, loaded with buckshot it has been my home defense gun for a long time.@@ringding1000
They used to do a lot of things with shotguns that we don’t do any more, like shooting from the hip.
Slamfire from the hip should give a lot worse results, and I’d like to see that tested too.
Would be interesting to see this course done with a Benelli m4 as this seems a good representation of where modern combat shotguns are at the moment
Not in close quarters urban pacification situations or residential interiors. That long barrel will get you disarmed quickly.
I’d like to see a shotgun course with targets out to 100 meters in general.
See how and when shooters choose to swap to slugs on the clock or take their their chances.
35 meters? 45 meters?
Too often shotguns are limited to a few extremely close range shots in competition.
You’d have to dissuade shooters from running the course with all slugs.
Beretta 1301 would like a word
@@bigguy7353 Benelli M4 Tactical then. 18.5" instead of the 30" of the Winchester 1897 Standard. Shown in this video is, however, is the 1897 Trench, with 20". Close enough to the M4 Tactical.
Whatever. To see the difference between a pump gun and a semiauto, just watch the late Tom Knapp.
ua-cam.com/video/ajRydkuRPlg/v-deo.html
TL;DR version:
Pump shotgun (Benelli Nova Pump): 8 clay targets in 1.87 seconds
Semiauto (Benelli M2 Field): 10 clay targets in 2.2 seconds.
Semiauto (Benelli M1 Super 90): 9 clay targets in less than 2 seconds.
With extended magazine tubes, obviously.
@@-John-Doe- Effective range is typically 50 meters with regular shot and maximum range is typically 150 meters with solid slugs (assuming typical competition shotguns).
I had a Winchester model 06 .22 pump that broke down via a thumb screw on the side of the receiver. Also known as a "gallery gun" as that style would have been seen at shooting galleries at local fairs. Loved the slamfire feature except to check the action the hammer needed to depress the firing pin to unlock the pump, if you didn't remember to take your finger off the trigger when closing the pump, let's just say as with all firearms you need to careful
Slamfire seems to be better for raw recruits who have to clear a trench bunker; the death grip on the trigger would become an advantage over him having to pump and pull.
Or big disadvantage because they accidentally slamfire.
Who on earth does that now 🙄
@@alangordon3283very few shotguns can do it. Thanks to lawyers and ATF.
uh no? it would be the opposite for raw recruits because weapons need to be idiot proof. and slamfire shotguns are definitely not.
@@dolsopolar exactly. If you are exposed to the repetition of training then the old common saying of "falling back to your training as second nature" is real. Slam firing is nowhere in any POI i've ever seen and as such should be chalked up to fudd lore hype.
With mine I notice the dramatic shift between trigger vs actuator ignition requires significant practice to keep the thing on target. Stabilization is reversed in "slam" mode, the right hand holds it steady and the left becomes the "trigger". With practice, time and ammo it can be useful, but quite awkward for a noob.
I'd love to see a cowboy action champ with the 97 vs Matt with his 870.
I think with regular loads Matt would trounce them. CAS competitors' power factors are absurdly low, less than half the minimum power factor for any current shooting sport with modern firearms. They won't go nearly as fast when they have to negotiate with the real deal.
@@Seseous Very valid point. That fore grip adds much in the way of power factors being a problem.
But if we add single loading in the mix, the CA shooter might pull back ahead. With the single loading, we are acquiring target as we pull the action bar towards the target in a pointing motion and are on target as it fires from achieving battery.
Exactly my thoughts, cowboy action shooters would have to be the ones with most experience with Slam firing 97s. The one I use for CAS is made in 1900
@@Seseousnot in my club.
That big ported section on the 870 barrel probably helps return to target more quickly.
Press trigger when ready to shoot. The benefit of slam-fire is that you can press the trigger if you're ready to shoot before the action has been closed. Watch some cowboy shooters single-feeding 97s and you'll also see some wild stuff.
@@justforever96The way I see the advantage of this is not about accuracy or speed, but eliminating a complication on a stressful situation (circling and synchronizing the trigger).
@justforever96 but the autos are preferred generally BECAUSE they have extra capabilities.
I'd rather have capabilities in my gear that I can't take advantage of, than have my skill capped by less capable gear.
@@justforever96 I know of at least one cowboy shooter out there who doesn't consider slam-firing a "trick shot". It's just how you shoot a 97. There's no trick about it when that's how you learned to shoot it.
@@Shadow__133 Reduces reliability the same reason bump fire and binary triggers reduce reliably.
@@SilverStarHeggisist Something you wouldn't need on a WWI scenario, where you'll most likely die before the gun does.
My father when he joined law enforcement back in the early 70s, the police academy taught all trainees how to properly slam fire an Ithaca Model 37 Featherweight if needed for crowd control. You would rotate the shotgun 90 degrees with the ejection/feed port facing inwards,. place the butt of the shotgun against the front of your holster/hip, point the shotgun to the left if you were right handed or right if your were left handed and then pull the trigger and rack the slide. The recoil of the shotgun would naturally pull the barrel of the shotgun on the opposite direction you initially pointed the shotgun. This allowed you to essentially spray the crowd with buckshot.
Honestly having an external hammer/striker is a big selling point to me. Being able to re-strike the primer without opening the action and risking an out of battery detonation is a nice safety bonus to have.
While it sounds sexy, I've never had a good functioning gun fail to set off a primer, factory or reload. Only issue I've had is weak hammer spring on a well used gun. Barring rimfire ammo, of course. And those I've never had a hangfire.
An exposed hammer is another potential failure point from dirt and mud too
It seems to me that the need to restrike the primer means you've got crap ammo - which case, you've got bigger problems.
Honestly, hang fires aren't really a thing with modern centerfire ammo that has been handled with *anything* approaching "sanity".
I've had some hang fires with .22LR that was old enough the box had a three character state abbreviation and no zip code on the company address. Amd I've had hangfires on some.1950s Pakistani production milsurp that looked like Indiana Jones would shout, "That belongs in a museum!"
@@geodkyt Glad its not just me with the Paki hangfires! Got an 8mm Mauser years ago an it "came with ammo" so I figured it'd be a good afternoon with a few buddies. Well, old mate behind the counter holds up two full bags of ammunition - all of it Paki milsurp. This stuff was comically bad with some hangfires almost the same delay as a flintlock. Click - BANG! Haha... good times.
I don't think it'd really change anything, but I'd liked to have seen Ian try to do all the drills as well just so we see a more realistic training level vs an expert. Love the video, keep it up!
I fell in love with '97s through cowboy action shooting. I had the advantage of being right handed and left eye dominant, keeping the shotgun shouldered while loading successive rounds. At one point I bought every one I saw come up for sale, ended up with 5 originals my safe plus a Chinese Norinco copy.
The 97 with the sword bayonet is, imo, one of the most intimidating handheld weapons I've ever seen.
Slam Fire does work but it takes conditioning. Author and US Army veteran James Jones (From Here to Eternity) wrote that a member of his squad slam-fired his Model 97 (on Guadalcanal), killing five Japanese as fast as one could blink an eye. More impressive to Jones and the others in the squad is that the guy with the shotgun didn't even unsling his M1 Garand. BTW, my 97 - made in 1909 - is within arm's length of me now. (Other than a Model 12 trench gun) I'd still take it over anything offered. Indeed, John Browning designed his guns to ". . . last a life-time," as he put it. They've lasted FAR longer than that.
That's what I was thinking. Conditioning, and of course the stress of your life actually being on the line would/could infact motivate one's brain and muscle memory to learn to be better, faster with a feature like slamfire. This test should also have been conducted in a trench setting; not open ground.
They sure as hell lasted more than the lifetime of the nazis & imperials on the other side of it ☠
To be fair, if you actually need a gun and it breaks the results likely mean it pretty much lasted your lifetime!
I started playing paintball in the 1980s when all the paintball guns were pump actuated. Eventually people developed "auto triggers" for them, which functioned the same as slam fire. Shots on auto trigger were not accurate (as accurate as paintballs get) or really any faster. The only advantage they had is when you surprised a group of the other team and could unload until your Co2 or paint tube ran out. It was glorious when this happened. But that was more due to the "Rambo feeling" it gave you than actual effectiveness
I could see slam fire being a lot easier to do under stress than working the action properly
This.
Plus from my understanding you "hip" fired. because this was a case of First one that put bullets down range wins ether by hitting or shaking them so that they drop the gun, fumbles the action, or just loses there ability to aim beyond wild hip fire into the roof.
you had a buddy behind you that would sweep in if you missed one (that usally was ether leeping for cover or wildly shooting at nothing).
Nope. Under the duress you are much better doing what you practiced more. Using different techniques on a range and in combat is not very productive.
@@tutzdesYT
WTF?
Who's on first?
@@tutzdesYT In the context of WW1 they had barely practiced at all. The average US infantryman had like 6 weeks of training with outdated techniques, and it showed - we had some of the worst trained, least experienced troops on the Western front.
@@browncoat697Did it? I mean, when I think of the US in the western front, I think of things like the Battle of Belleau Wood, the 82nd, the Harlem Helfighters, the battle of the Argonne, the US troops out advancing the rest of the armies to such a degree that their flanks became exposed, "Retreat? Hell, we just got here!"
The US had 6 months of training prior to WW1, not 6 weeks. I couldn't find any concrete numbers for training duration for the Germans or French during 1918, but I'm gonna go with it's significantly less, just because they have their borders being fought over.
I love these 1897 videos man, glad that its getting attention, such an iconic and cool cool shotgun
Now try the slam-fire while hip shooting. That is where it shines. They used to teach that in the Police Academy for close-in shooting. We also used Ithaca M37's DPS shotguns and their action is much faster than the 1897. If Ian would recreate this with that shotgun (early Ithacas had no disconnector) it would prove interesting.
I'm sorry, I'll never hear "Police Academy" and not think of that movie series with Steve Gutenberg.
So I think what Ian was explaining was ww1 where it was said the shotgun when slam fired could put 5 shots down range in less than 3 seconds, it was also that shotgun that made Germans fear it and during ww1 Germany tried to claim shotguns were a war crime (while they used mustard gas)
@@lockinhinddanger934 Except people are all overlooking one thing. The ammunition. In 1917 and 1918 shotgun ammunition was not the same as it is now, specifically when it comes to the casing. It ws a form of stiff waxed cardboard, it was NOT plastic as modern shotgun cartridges are.
And THAT is where the problems lay, and why most US troops actually issued with the shotguns tended to 'lose' them in fairly short order and replace them with Enfield 1917's or Springfield 1903's.
Have many of you been to North Western Europe? It rains here, a lot, even during the summer. Without specialist ammunition containers (which the American troops were NOT issued) the ammunition would get damp. Carried loose in the pockets it would also get deformed as troops took cover. Ammunition in the magazine like ammunition carried in the pockets would get damp.
In short, the misfire rate was horrendous. Slamfiring into a trench ONLY works if all your shells go boom, if most of them fail to do so what you have is not a weapon useful for clearing trenches but a damned liability.
In ALL of the attempt on YT and in literature to claim how useful those shotguns were in in WWI ALL of them use MODERN ammunition. NONE of them use the ammunition ACTUALLY supplied. It is why every single one is wrong....
There was nothing wrong with the shotgun, but the ammunition was temperamental and prone to misfires in the conditions found on the Western Front. This ide that the Americans and only the Americans had figured out to use shotguns in the Trenches is, I am afraid, also a myth, both the British and French experimented with them but those experiments never got beyond testing at home. They were all failures, because of the ammunition....
@@alganhar1Shotgunners were issued full brass shells
@@ironiso411not all were, cardboard was the usual in 00buck but some got brass case in the early years.
I have an incredible fondness for the MOD97 12GA. When I was 13 I went on my first duck hunt, dad gave me a MOD 97 with a long barrel to use. We had an awesome opening weekend and the 4 of use took a limit each day in N AZ. At one point a pair of redhead drakes came bombing over our decoys left to right at full bore afterburner speed. I saw them in time to acquire, track and engage the birds cycling that old pump fast enough to drop the both before they could exit stage right. Later I hunted with MOD 12 pumps and when on my game could drop three dove out of a passing flights cycling that classic Winchester pump.
Really interesting video! Matt Haught is an absolute beast with these shotguns. I would argue that the second trial, with a bunch of germans huddled together in a trench, is the place where the slam fire would've/could've been used in the war and was the most useful experiment. The last trial, with targets spread out with a good few feet or yards apart, I don't think anyone arguing in favor of the slam fire strategy would intend it to be used there. Still, I really liked the thoroughness of this experiment... with one pretty big exception. As Ian pointed out very early on, it seemed the benefits gained from using the non-slamfire technique were not actually technique related, but equipment related. This makes it a bit of an apples to oranges comparison, and while it's really cool that using a 125 year old gun with a less advantageous technique is only barely slower than using a modern gun with all the tactical bells and whistles, I think it detracts from the point the test was trying to make because you've failed to isolate the variable in question. As other comments have pointed out, a third run on each set of targets should've been completed with the 1897 ran in the "traditional" technique to provide an actual "control" datapoint
Per the ergonomics of the smaller pump handle is that (in general) people were smaller sized back then at turn of 20th century due to lack of healthcare and vitamins that would only change in post World War 2 era. As an example General Eisenhower's personal security detail was made up of men 6' or taller which was more rare back then even in World War Two 20 years after World War One.
That's a fair point. We're so well fed in the US that about half of Americans are obese (as of latest census). America turn of the 1900's was not an overweight society.
What I love most about these videos is that I was born, raised and reside just 2 square miles from Ian's local gun shop, which isn't mine particularly shop but just mere walking distance.
These videos simply feel like home to me. Just like another day out with the boys shooting. Could very well be at the same well known local shooting spot everyone has used forever
Nostalgia
While I largely agree with this video, two things:
One, I promise you my Marine Corps trained with their weapons. I promise you they did. The Army I don't know, but I know the Marine Corps DID.
Two, get a cowboy action shooter out there to run alongside a modern expert and let's see what happens. I'm not going to lie, I feel the results will be about the same. But I've seen those cowboy action shooters do some magical things with those 1897's and it would be fun to watch.
Great video other than those minor things.
From what I've seen, the usefulness of slamfire seems to be inversely proportional to the skill of the user.
I.E The less practiced and less trained the user is, the more they'll be able to get out of slam fire and inversely, the more well trained and practiced the shotgunner is, the more diminishing returns you'll get from using it. A well trained shotgunner can work the action of the gun properly and achieve just as good a fire rate as if he were slam firing.
Two words: Paul Harrell (who proves your statement 100% correct).
this.
FACT. It's conditioning. This guy isn't a good example of what the gun - or shooter - is capable of.
@@josephspringer7432 And...in a WW1 trench...you wouldn't be shouldering the gun. From the hip only.
I dont know i think quite the opposite, i have a model 12 that slamfires, and out of stubborn determination i wanted to get good at it,
It can be quicker than conventional shooting but only with alot of practace, because in the process of bringing the pump forward its easy to throw your aim.
after sacrificeing many cases of cheap birdshot, i can say comfortably my slamfire times are infact faster, but it requires far more concentration to aim and kind of requires a shooting form of its own. Only real practical use i could see would be bird hunting, because the thing is while it is quicker, its not *much* quicker, and it requires focus that i cannot imagine youd have while being shot at also doing it accurately at any kind of distance requires shooting from a stand still, which again, does not seem conducive to surviveing a war.
Always a treat to watch Matt run shotguns on camera. Thanks Ian!
To be fair, it would be a much better test if you did the non-slam fire shooting with the 1897. It would eliminate the variables of the 870 being more modern, smoother, and more familiar to the shooter, and so that would no longer have to be a caveat. After all, you don’t have to slam fire the 1897. I see no reason to not do both kinds of shooting with the same shotgun. You might have the same results, but they would be more valid, as the test would be fairer and more scientific.
Yeah but the while point of the video was testing slam fire
@@CrazyMegaOmega That's exactly his point. You have to shoot the 1897 normally in order to have a control sample.
I agree and Ian should have been shooting because he's less experienced than this guy, that would have made a difference too.
The problem is that to not slamfire you have to be sure you release the trigger before you slam the slide back forwards, and that will slow you down more than using a non-slamfire capable gun unless you've had lots of practice.
@@CrazyMegaOmega Which they didn't achieve at all, they straw manned slamfire by putting the shooter on a weapon he's intimately familiar with vs a weapon he clearly hadn't ran before.
Yes it's slamfire thats why my firsr pump shootgun in 1977 was a Winchester 1897 and i really love it . one more gun that will slamfire is the Wichester 906 & Rossi old model 62 wlii shooting 22 CB.S.L.LR is a lot of fun to, i got my Rossi 62 in 1982 love it to . but my kids keep trying to get both of them from me , Thank you for video .
9:41 As a US sailor on security guard duty, with a shotgun in 1979, our GMG1 (A Vietnam PBR Vet) taught us to aim at the ship's STEEL deck in front of the enemy to spread the buckshot pattern. -don't work in a trench though. LOL.
Matt seems like a chill but extremely dangerous dude. Great video!
I have a 1897 takedown model with 2 barrels. My gramps bought it just before the 1928 depression, then it was my dads, and then mine. Ive slam fired it many times just for fun.
I don't think it'll make a difference but trying a round where he uses the old shotty but doesn't slam fire would be nice just as a control.
But it probably doesn't make a difference. Just curious how much the ergonomics of the new model change things.
That guy is right about lack of disconnectors throughout the early shotguns.
The Remington Model 31 and the Steven's Model 520 and 620A trench and riot guns also used by the military in WWII lacked the disconnectors as well.
Great episode and I think your conclusion is spot on. However, it probably would have made more sense to run the 1897 conventionally against the slam-fire run, versus introducing a modern shotgun, especially the demonstrator's person one.
Yeah, because a modern 870 wasn't actually available during WW1.
Whole thing is flawed you have the shooter running a weapon their intimately familiar with vs a weapon they clearly haven't even had a full range day on. There's really no conclusions you can pull form a test like this other than the shooter is slightly better with a system they're familiar with which is like no shit sherlock.
@@n00bist723 Funny enough I think a better example of a standard Pump vs Slam fire experiment is Kentucky Ballistics video on slamfire shotguns. Scott uses shotguns a lot but he's not a wizard that's as skilled as Matt so the comparison between shotguns is more even. Scott uses a standard Mossberg, an Ithaca, and a Winchester Model 1912. Here's the times Scott got for the comparison:
Mossberg: 3.96 seconds
Ithaca (Slam Fire): 2.28 seconds
Winchester (Slam Fire): 3.28 seconds
Scott messed up racking one of the shots for the Winchester also but still got a slightly higher speed than the Mossberg. Keep in mind this is done as a pure speed test rather than aiming for targets.
It's a different kind of action as he mentions. You fire on close, not on trigger press.
It's useful in a "empty the tube" kinda scenario, but you still get the ability to release the trigger & cycle the action for aimed fire.
Why testing this with two separate weapons and not with a single weapon that allows both techniques? It seems like a lot of other factors (weight, ergonomics, gun mechanics and build quality) could add or substract from the final result.
You can still fire the Winchester standard = rack then pull the trigger.
@@warrenharrison9490 this doesn't answer my question, it only enhance it :D
Hip fire and charge protection were key for ww1 in the tight trenches, plus pushing the target of the hit back away from the user
probably mentioned here somewhere in the zillion comments but he should have run the winchester with slamfire and then doing it releasing the trigger as if it did have a disconnector. That way it's not familiar vs. unfamiliar shotgun, it's just the two firing methods.
The Stevens 520 series (and Ranger and JC Higgins offshoots) were also a Browning design. I didn’t know my worn Stevens was slam fire capable until missing on a rabbit one day, and upon chambering the second shell, dropped it. Our brave presenters also criticized the ergonomics of the 1897’s stock design. Personally, I find the 20’s and 30’s grips MUCH easier to carry long distances because your hand isn’t cramped into a tight curve. These designs weren’t accidental or primitive in any way.
I'd be willing to bet that the hype around slamfire with the 1897, much like the hype around the Thompson, came more from use by Prohibition-era mob muscle than war time usage. I imagine a rip from the 1897 into an office would make quite a mess.
The bayonet reveal was masterful
Slamfire is a lot like full-auto: harder to control, but if you don't know how to aim then more shots = more chances to hit the target
Also for groups of enemies (e.g. trench sweeping) rate of fire is the most important thing
Except pumping of action will restore, somewhat, point of aim unlike full that climb upward and at an angle due to pivot point of recoil.
8:22 but but... ALL games clearly show us that the spread of even the longest shotgun is gigantic, which means it should cover everything and also basically be useless beyond melee range
I love my old 97. Hardly ever use the slam fire feature but it's killed me several turkeys and a menagerie of other game birds.
7:15 I liked the Army version, "Slow is smooth, smooth is fast"
I remember as a kid, short stroking my 870 every once in a while and getting a shell caught in the ejector; especially, when like a bird suprised me. So, I can see slam firing being more risky than helpful under pressure.
Dirty boy.
This is like racing a manual mustang and your grandmother's automatic subaru to see which transmission type is better
Even though there's some slightly better ergonomics and handling of modern shotguns, it's easy to see why the 1897 was so effective and feared in the war.
Finally someone on UA-cam calls it by the correct name. There's no such thing as an accidental discharge, only a negligent discharge.
There's a strong factor that isn't being considered: Coordination. When you're 17 or 18 in a trench with a line of guys coming down on you, you might not have the best ability to keep multiple motions in quick line. Rather than straight speed, it's much easier to make a single repetitive motion. Less risk of user error.
Yeah not a out of shape white guy
That last "miss" with slamfire was the captive taken for questioning, he just wanted to scare the bejesus out of him!
I've always put slamfire and bumpfire in the same category. A fun range trick that has little to no practical application.
I used to have people trying to tell me slam fire was faster then semiauto
@@SilverStarHeggisistI bet those same people are fans of the .22 bounce around 100% death round too
@@alexanderren1097 yup, they were, while also decrying the 5.56 as too under powered.
i have heard a few of my friends who were in the navy say this quote about shooting fast, "slow is smooth, and smooth is fast." they got it from the SEALs.
Crazy idea: maybe a better test would be to test it with someone with not that much experience with shotguns. Your average WWI soldier would most likely be a baker with no prior experience.
Underated comment. Also someone more with a Forgotten Weapons + malnourished body build, with rotting feet.
Or a side by side comparison with a cowboy action shooter who is proficient in slam fire to remove some of platform training bias
Might have reached the same conclusion, but I'd trust it more coming from someone who's used the technique on the clock for more than 3 runs previously
@@cupajoe7258 yes when CAS running 97s are running in the 4 sec range including loading.
My brother did the same thing, he had a modern pump shotgun, removed the choke and magazine plug and used it as a punt gun/blunderbuss to shoot a bunch of snowgeese!
Matt heavy breathing while holding a trench gun with a bayonet attached is a mood.
I've actually got a WW1 trench broom 100% complete with bayonet and sling thanks to my grandfather who served with the 82nd infantry in WW1, it's a little ( very little) banged up due to it being over 100 years old but it's still tight and shoots great, I have 30 rounds of brass cased 12ga 00 buck that I had loaded by a friend of mine just for it, I only fire low brass modern ammo through it to minimize recoil on the old girl but she will still out shoot alot of modern guns on the tactical course.
Before I continue to watch. My theory is slam fire has minimal benefit when used by a proficient user. I could imagine it being more beneficial to someone who has minimal experience with pump action shotguns.
cue Lee Marvin
Haveing a model 12 that slamfires and immediately going about testing this after my purchase,
with practice via haveing 3 man sized targets about 20 yards off fireing to hit each one twice in one run, slam fireing is marginally faster.
but the key is you need to practace the motion enough that your not throwing your aim when you do it, theres a wierd motion and cadence about it where your basically pushing the gun down into the pump so you end up at roughly the point you started before recoil.
how practical that would be when getting shot at? dont know, probably was useful for birdhunting back before semis where super commonplace
Very interesting that they mention the Model 12. That was the first gun that I ever owned, it was a birthday gift when I was 14. At 16, out on a skeet range, I wasn't fully paying attention and accidentally slam fired the gun and nearly took my foot off. I'm 27 now, I had largely forgotten about that until he mentioned the Model 12 was capable of slam fire. 16 year old me had no idea.
An argument could be made that the concept of slamfire would be useful in the context of the user being someone with limited training and not that much regard to actually aim their shots, just dumping it all down in the general direction of the target. Basically just squeaze the gun stock under your armpit and pin it down with the arm, hold down the trigger and have the left hand do all the work. Aim by feel alone and in the literal sense, spray and pray.
If they have limited training, they're probably mostly feeling panic, and aiming by panic seems like a recipe for disaster.
@@TheMadalucard panicking and slam fire sounds like a working combo
Exactly why they were favored for night sentry watch. Fill the darkness you heard a stranger with a screen of buckshot.
Slamfire = spray-and-pray = loser
When I enlisted in the Marine Corps in 68 there were still some WWII Marines around finishing out 30 year tours.
One, a Master Gunny armorer, when I asked him about an old model 1897 in the back of the armory told me that the only real benefit of slam fire was that they were easy to use when you were scared witless. All you had to do was hold the trigger down and pump the action.
I don't do it all the time but occasionally it's fun to see how quickly I pump a tube of ammo through my 16 gauge 1910 model 97.
I think Slamfire only really had a psychological advantage. Imagine what a Kraut felt and thought when he saw some 17 year old Yankee jump into a trench and just rapidly crank off 5 shots into a group of your allies then rush you with the sword on the end of the bangstick, and what few survivors of this encounter would tell to their friends on the back lines. Imagine what the young American felt when he devastated a group of Germans within 3 seconds with that gun, and what he told Sarge when he regrouped with the rest of his platoon.
16:50 There's this video of exactly this sort of negligent discharge that lives in my head rent free, where some guy in an apartment with an 1897 neglects to ensure his magazine is empty and proceeds to slam-fire a round into the ceiling, in a crowded apartment, while explaining and demonstrating that the 1897 has slam-fire.
My limited understanding is that the 1897 combined with the soldiers using them is what made it so scary
That shotgun gentleman has amazing on-camera charisma
I really like your guy's work but this test was flawed the moment the shooter disclosed that he's intimately familiar with one of the test weapons and as evident by his first runs completely unfamiliar with the other. Nothing this video shows or concludes has any significant weight to it. It's also pretty evident from some of the things you've said you have bias against the weapon that the shooter is weaker with this is a strawman at best.
You didn’t touch on the teenager being sent to a different country, being handed a gun and told “your fighting for your life, don’t screw up or we all die”, the kind of stress that puts a kid under would lead to all kinds of coordination errors, I imagine just gripping the trigger for dear life and working the action removes some error possibly
The 1 only great thing of slam firing is its prominent use for Nerf guns. Nerf guns don’t use true automatic loading systems like recoil or gas operation as the projectile fired is just a foam dart. So, the slam firing actually helps a Nerf gun to fire faster but requiring the user to manually cycle the action. Nevertheless, it’s the best known way other than using external power of batteries.
I own a Model 12 and having practiced slam fire quite a bit, i can see what it was useful for. I can dump a full tube +1 into a man size target from the hip at the sort of ranges you would encounter some enemies who snuck into your trench. It does take practice to learn to do it well. The gun bucks each shot and you pull down and forward as you cycle it to keep it on target. It's a lot like riding a bucking horse haha. But it's definitely faster and accurate enough for that sort of job. Doing it from the shoulder, i would say is less useful. But, i have seen a really old Winchester ad where a pro shooter tossed a handful of clays in the air and slamfired every single one. The man was so fast at aiming that he was using the slamfire feature purely for speed.
Practice up and try this again. It IS faster, but it's also a skill that must be learned and practiced. And try it from the hip too! It's a lot of fun and shows the true utility of the feature.
Doesn’t seem like a very scientific test at all. Like yeah, dude is gonna be able to shoot way better with a weapon he’s intimately familiar with than a gun he’s never shot before.
"Slicker than snot on a doorknob" is a great colorful phrase.
As an airsoft player who started on a pump action shotgun replica I knew beforehand that the slam fire has no merit.
My replica didn't have a slam fire and I learned pretty quickly to synchronize the pumping and pressing the trigger right after each other.
Also closing the action by the supporting hand is way more disruptive than open bolt guns shooting. So you need to stay on target while closing. With no chance of correction if closing the action throws your aim too off. If you need to press the trigger you can afford a few milliseconds to correct your aim.
Without slam fire there is the danger of you getting out of sync and pulling the trigger too soon, so you'd have to reset the trigger - you'd lose time that way. But I don't think that happened to me ever - and in airsoft scirmish there is the element of stress / adrenalin closer to that of real battle - you go fast not because you are trying to go fast, but because you need to go fast. That is also quite significant difference (as shown even in the video here on the first stage - he messed up some shots because he was trying to go faster).
I can focus with this dude breathing so damn hard
I would agree that the effectiveness/usefulness of slamfire is pretty overstated. That said, even if properly aiming and deliberately firing each shot would have technically been more effective, I'd be willing to bet that seeing an American WW1 soldier jump into an enemy trench and empty an 1897's entire tube in just a couple seconds must have made quite an impression on Europeans who formerly thought of shotguns just as double-barreled break-actions that their grandpappys used to hunt birds.
10:54 Well hearing Ian say "snoot boop" was not something I ever expected.
Ask the old timers about Model 97's in daily, practical hunting use. They are inherently dangerous when carried with loaded chamber due to the exposed hammer. I probably will get boos on that but it is a fact, especially with old well-worn specimens. Still a great gun and immensely interesting, just takes some extra thinking when handling it. Great video!!!
The Remington model 10 was NOT an ancestor to the Ithaca 37. The direct predecessor to the Ithaca 37 was the Remington model 17. The Remington 10 was modernized into the model 29 while the Remington 17 was modernized into the model 31. The Model 31 then led, indirectly, to the simplified 870 and even more indirectly to the Mossberg 500. The Remington 17 was John Browning and JD Pedersen's magnum opus. Browning initially wanted to sell Winchester a pump action instead of the lever action that became the 1887. Winchester took 10 years to realize that pump action was where it was at. Browning went on to design another pump action, the Stevens 520, before perfecting it with the Remington 17.