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January 20, 2023
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I realize everybody sentient a month ago knows I finally got my Winchester 21 Skeet Gun, the double I’ve been wanting since 1956 at age 12. Dad’s friends said I was not very smart but did have good taste in fishing reels (Shakespeare True Blue and Direct Drive) and shotguns. The latter has taken a while.
After reading or hearing about it to the point of boredom, (some) Members have asked for photos, possibly to shut me up. I dismantled and stored my Sofbox lights and background paper — the lighting setup I used to photograph the 4 guns I had to sell to get the 21 — so all I can do for the moment to quell the increasingly impatient griping is show you the seller’s photos. These are a very accurate representation of what the gun actually looks like. I might add they are also the images Bert H. kindly looked at for me to see if he could see any red flags, before I sealed the deal.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/ArG1W8Htpx1xLWou8
TxGunNut has rightly suggested we pattern the gun, which I propose we do with one- ounce loads of hard 7 1/2 lead. From what I’ve read, WS-1 was designed to provide a dense, wide pattern at 20 yards; WS-2 to do the same at 30 yards. An alternative description for WS-1 was “tighter than Cylinder Bore but less constricted than Improved Cylinder.” For WS-2, “weak Modified.”
Because these constrictions were determined before the invention of polyethylene shot sleeves and computerized dynamic shot performance analysis, it will be very interesting to see what patterns are produced. I once owned and hunted with a Browning Standard weight Auto-5 twelve gauge with a Fabrique Nationale factory issue Cylinder barrel. With Winchester AA 3-dram eq. 1 1/8 oz # 7 1/2 “Heavy Target” loads, it produced the prettiest Improved Modified patterns at 40 yards you’ve ever seen!
- Bill
WACA # 65205; life member, NRA; member, TGCA; member, TSRA; amateur preservationist
"I have seen wicked men and fools, a great many of both, and I believe they both get paid in the end, but the fools first." -- David Balfour, narrator and protagonist of the novel, Kidnapped, by Robert Louis Stevenson.
September 19, 2014
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Zeb, Knowing 0 about model 21’s, it still looks good to me! Hope you enjoy a few rounds of skeet with it. Or a day afield after doves. Tim
December 9, 2002
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Zeb,
Congrats, on a very nice model 21 Skeet Grade! I’m glad you we’re able to acquire a lifelong Want!
Thanks for sharing! 
Anthony
June 1, 2023
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I’m officially green with envy. Beautiful shotgun!
BRP
January 20, 2023
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Thanks, Tim. It was always hard for me to pass up a bookstore when on my lunch hour and there were once such stores close to my office. All gone, now. But one of them stocked Krause Publications offerings and, if I saw one of their Winchester-related volumes, I’d buy it, even if I didn’t own the gun. Schwing’s edition on the Model 21 was one of them. I already had his two-volume set on the Model 90 and descendants and the Model 61, which I’d understood to be the last word on those rifles. There may be other and more accurate works on the Model 21 but I’ve never heard of any.
So, what I know about the Model 21 mostly comes from Schwing, with a little from Ron Stadt.
There weren’t that many of that model produced in New Haven; I’ve read 32,500 and 33,200, among other total production numbers. Cody knows, I don’t but it wasn’t very many, in any event. They were always expensive. John Olin ordered them for his friends and saw them as an important emblem of quality that benefitted the Winchester name and marks. They sold Winchester brand ammunition and I don’t think JMO cared if Winchester brand commercial guns made a profit as long as Winchester Ammunition did. Just my opinion.
- Bill
WACA # 65205; life member, NRA; member, TGCA; member, TSRA; amateur preservationist
"I have seen wicked men and fools, a great many of both, and I believe they both get paid in the end, but the fools first." -- David Balfour, narrator and protagonist of the novel, Kidnapped, by Robert Louis Stevenson.
June 1, 2023
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Bill,
I too have Ned Schwing’s book on the 21, but I don’t have a Winchester 21—- at least, not yet!
My infatuation with the 21 goes back to an afternoon about 40 years ago, when I was shooting the bull with a friend who was behind the counter at Don’s store in Lewistown, Montana. A somewhat disheveled elderly gentleman in worn out Levis carried in a cased shotgun to show my friend behind the counter. It was a Winchester 21 Grand American, 2 barrel set, complete with fore end wood on both sets of barrels. I don’t think I had ever seen anything so beautiful in all my life. Spectacular walnut, beautifully executed engraving and gold inlay work of the highest quality imaginable. I could almost hear the Hallelujah chorus in the background. After we had all drooled on it for a while, the old gent put it back in the hard case and carried it away. As he drove away in a rusty old Ford pickup truck that was at least 30 years old, I wondered out loud how a guy like that could afford such a beautiful shotgun. My friend laughed and told me the unassuming owner was a retired US Army General. An officer and a gentleman, to be sure! He was smart enough to put his money where it mattered. Who needs new clothes and a modern truck anyway?
BRP
September 22, 2011
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Zebulon said
Thanks, Tim. It was always hard for me to pass up a bookstore when on my lunch hour and there were once such stores close to my office. All gone, now. But one of them stocked Krause Publications offerings and, if I saw one of their Winchester-related volumes, I’d buy it, even if I didn’t own the gun. Schwing’s edition on the Model 21 was one of them. I already had his two-volume set on the Model 90 and descendants and the Model 61, which I’d understood to be the last word on those rifles. There may be other and more accurate works on the Model 21 but I’ve never heard of any.
So, what I know about the Model 21 mostly comes from Schwing, with a little from Ron Stadt.
There weren’t that many of that model produced in New Haven; I’ve read 32,500 and 33,200, among other total production numbers. Cody knows, I don’t but it wasn’t very many, in any event. They were always expensive. John Olin ordered them for his friends and saw them as an important emblem of quality that benefitted the Winchester name and marks. They sold Winchester brand ammunition and I don’t think JMO cared if Winchester brand commercial guns made a profit as long as Winchester Ammunition did. Just my opinion.
Yes, you are correct.
The Model 21 is a lot of gun for a dismal era (the Great Depression). I think John Olin manufactured them never intending to turn a profit, but to offset the loss with the sale of ammunition.
You have a fine shotgun, Zebulon! I’ve always admired them but never owned one.
By the way, another fine product of the Great Depression was the nearly handcrafted Smith & Wesson Registered Magnum revolver.
November 7, 2015
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Hmmm….I seem to have a few boxes of shells loaded with 1oz of 7 1/2 shot rated at 1180fps. We’ll need to change over to #8 shot when we adjourn to the Skeet field. Can’t get over the wood on this 21, I don’t see many to compare it to but I’m guessing it is exceptional even by Custom Shop standards. Olin likely wasn’t good for Winchester but as a collector and a shooter I appreciate his efforts.
Mike
July 8, 2012
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Zeb,
That is one beautiful model 21. Like some have said here, I’ve never owned a model 21, but always admired the quality and workmanship in them. I have the Model 21 book by Schwing, and maybe someday will own the gun to go with it. Thanks for sharing your find with us.
Al
January 20, 2023
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TXGunNut said
Hmmm….I seem to have a few boxes of shells loaded with 1oz of 7 1/2 shot rated at 1180fps. We’ll need to change over to #8 shot when we adjourn to the Skeet field. Can’t get over the wood on this 21, I don’t see many to compare it to but I’m guessing it is exceptional even by Custom Shop standards. Olin likely wasn’t good for Winchester but as a collector and a shooter I appreciate his efforts.
Mike
Well, we have to give JMO, his dad and his brother, all credit for buying the Winchester assets out of receivership, a commitment that put their individual fortunes on the line — if things hadn’t gone well, the Olins would have been bankrupted because of the size of the risk and their personal guarantees. Western was not enormous and the accumulated WRA debt was formidable.
And their decision was made in the depths of the Great Depression, when even honorable men wondered if capitalism could survive.
It is hard for me to admit that the financial glory days of commercial Winchester guns rose with the expansion of the American West and ended with World War I. Thereafter, except for a single year, 1966, the Commercial Gun Department was unprofitable to the day the gunmaking operation was sold to USRAC at the close of 1980.
For those of us — including me — particularly interested in Winchesters made post-WWI through 1964, when the shareholders of Olin Industries began growing tired of its penchant for disastrous acquisitions, something should be illuminating: Of course the Model 21 [ and the Model 61 hammerless and the 52 Sporting et al.] were so elegant and mechanically splendid — the best efforts of some of the best designers and makers in the World — because quality was paramount and cost almost no object.
JMO did not wake up one morning in 1963 and say to himself, “I’m tired of making great rifles and shotguns. I want to build cheap-looking, ugly firearms!”
The chickens were coming home to roost.
- Bill
WACA # 65205; life member, NRA; member, TGCA; member, TSRA; amateur preservationist
"I have seen wicked men and fools, a great many of both, and I believe they both get paid in the end, but the fools first." -- David Balfour, narrator and protagonist of the novel, Kidnapped, by Robert Louis Stevenson.
January 20, 2023
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Blue Ridge Parson said
Bill,
I too have Ned Schwing’s book on the 21, but I don’t have a Winchester 21—- at least, not yet!
My infatuation with the 21 goes back to an afternoon about 40 years ago, when I was shooting the bull with a friend who was behind the counter at Don’s store in Lewistown, Montana. A somewhat disheveled elderly gentleman in worn out Levis carried in a cased shotgun to show my friend behind the counter. It was a Winchester 21 Grand American, 2 barrel set, complete with fore end wood on both sets of barrels. I don’t think I had ever seen anything so beautiful in all my life. Spectacular walnut, beautifully executed engraving and gold inlay work of the highest quality imaginable. I could almost hear the Hallelujah chorus in the background. After we had all drooled on it for a while, the old gent put it back in the hard case and carried it away. As he drove away in a rusty old Ford pickup truck that was at least 30 years old, I wondered out loud how a guy like that could afford such a beautiful shotgun. My friend laughed and told me the unassuming owner was a retired US Army General. An officer and a gentleman, to be sure! He was smart enough to put his money where it mattered. Who needs new clothes and a modern truck anyway?
BRP
Lay not up for yourselves treasures on Earth, where moths and dust doth corrupt and thieves break through and steal…. but if you lay in a Grand American, get a good fireproof safe to go with it and leave both to the Diocese when you are done.
- Bill
WACA # 65205; life member, NRA; member, TGCA; member, TSRA; amateur preservationist
"I have seen wicked men and fools, a great many of both, and I believe they both get paid in the end, but the fools first." -- David Balfour, narrator and protagonist of the novel, Kidnapped, by Robert Louis Stevenson.
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