West Point admits Parkland student Peter Wang who died saving classmates
byCORKY SIEMASZKO
In life, he dreamed of becoming a soldier. In death, he was honored with an invitation to join their ranks.
Fifteen-year-old Peter Wang, who was killed while trying to help classmates escape from a gunman at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, was posthumously accepted to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point on Tuesday “for his heroic actions on Feb. 14, 2018” and then buried in his Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (JROTC) uniform.
15-year-old Peter Wang is a Monumental American 1:00
Wang, the U.S. Military Academy said in a statement, “had a lifetime goal to attend USMA.” Related: These are the 17 victims of the Parkland school shooting
“It was an appropriate way for USMA to honor this brave young man,” it read. “West Point has given posthumous offers of admission in very rare instances for those candidates or potential candidate’s (sic) whose actions exemplified the tenets of Duty, Honor and Country.”
Wang would have been in the Class of 2025, a West Point spokesman said.
Peter Wang. Courtesy Wang family
The letter was hand-delivered to Wang’s parents by a uniformed Army officer at the funeral home in Coral Springs, Florida, where a gut-wrenching funeral was held as grieving relatives wept beside the slain teenager’s open casket.
When the shooting started at the high school in Parkland, the Brooklyn, N.Y.-born cadet yanked open a door that allowed dozens of classmates, teachers and staffers to escape, officials said.
But as he stood at his post in his JROTC uniform and held the door open, Wang was shot and killed — one of the 17 students and staffers who died in the school that day.
“For as long as we remember him, he is a hero,” classmate Jared Burns told NBC Miami.
“He was like a brother to me and possibly one of the kindest people I ever met,” longtime friend Xi Chen added.
Peter Wang’s mother, Hui, cries as she is helped into a waiting car with her family after the memorial service for her 15-year-old son at Kraeer Funeral Home in Coral Springs, Florida, on Feb. 20, 2018. Taimy Alvarez / South Florida Sun-Sentinel viaAP
Gov. Rick Scott has directed the Florida National Guard to honor Wang, who was a freshman, and two other JROTC members who were killed — Alaina Petty, 14, and Martin Duque, 14.
Also, a petition calling on Congress to give Wang a full military funeral had collected nearly 70,000 signatures as of Tuesday afternoon, some 30,000 short of the 100,000 needed to get a response from the White House.
“Wang died a hero, and deserves to be treated as such, and deserves a full honors military burial,” the petition states.
A spring-gun is a gun, often a shotgun, rigged to fire when a string or other triggering device is tripped by contact of sufficient force to “spring” the trigger so that anyone stumbling over or treading on it would discharge the gun.
Spring-guns were formerly used as booby traps against poachers and trespassers. Since 1827, spring-guns and all man-traps have been illegal in England. Spring-guns are sometimes used to trap animals. Although there have been few reported cases of use, there have been several unconfirmed cases over the 20th century. The obvious implication is that spring-guns are still in use today, especially in circumstances where property of high value is in a remote location that makes other forms of securing it unreasonably difficult to effect.
In the 18th century, Spring-guns were often used to protect graveyards, offering an alarm system of sorts to protect newly buried bodies, which were often stolen by grave-robbers who supplied anatomists with cadavers.
Spring-guns were often set to protect property. For this purpose, spring-guns are often placed in busy corridors such as near doors. A trespasser opening the door completely would then be shot. Residents who are aware of the trap use a different door or open the door halfway and disconnect the tripwire. To reduce fatalities by using this trap, non-lethal calibers are often used, or the spring gun is fitted to fire less lethal ammunition.
For example, in the United States, most spring-guns are loaded with non-lethal caliber or shot to avoid liability arising from the use of deadly force in protection of a property interest. Posting clear and unmistakable warning signs as well as making entry to spring-gun guarded premises difficult for innocent persons, such as high walls, fences and natural obstacles, are significant ways to reduce potential tort liability arising from the spring-gun’s wounding of a careless or criminal intruder. Important US lawsuits regarding trespassers wounded by spring-guns include Katko v. Briney. Bird v. Holbrook is an 1825 English case also of great relevance, where a spring-gun set to protect a tulip garden injured a trespasser who was recovering a stray bird.[1] The man who set the spring-gun was liable for the damage caused.
A historic use of a spring-gun occurred during the night of June 3 or early morning of June 4, 1775, when a spring-gun set by the British to protect the military stores in the Magazine in Williamsburg, Virginia,[2] wounded two young men who had broken in. The subsequent outrage by the local population proved to be the final act of the Gunpowder Incident, leading Governor Dunmore to flee the city to a British warship and declare the Commonwealth of Virginia in a state of rebellion.
In 1981, Rene Seiptius and two friends attempted to flee from East Germany to West Germany. While they managed to avoid land mines, they did trip a spring gun, killing one of Rene’s friends.[3]
Another case is McComb v. Connaghan in which a 19-year-old burglar was killed by a spring-gun that was set up by the property owner who was a repeated victim of burglary.
Alternative traps are mines such as the crowd control munition, gas mine or the directional mine, such as the SM-70, which was used on the inner German border to prevent refugees from escaping East Germany. Crowd control munition and gas mines can be less lethal, while concussion mines are meant to kill. The latter are thus only used in military perimeter defenses.
A booby trap is a device or setup that is intended to kill, harm, or surprise a person, unknowingly triggered by the presence or actions of the victim. As the word trap implies, they sometimes have some form of bait designed to lure the victim towards it. At other times, the trap is set to act upon trespassers that violate personal or restricted areas. The device can be triggered when the victim performs some type of everyday action, e.g., opening a door, picking something up, or switching something on. They can also be triggered by vehicles driving along a road, as in the case of victim-operated improvised explosive devices (IEDs).
Booby traps should not be confused with mantraps which are designed to catch a person. Lethal booby traps are often used in warfare, particularly guerrilla warfare, and traps designed to cause injury or pain are also sometimes used by criminals wanting to protect drugs or other illicit property, and by some owners of legal property who wish to protect it from theft. Booby traps which merely cause discomfort or embarrassment are a popular form of practical joke.
The Spanish word bobo translates to “stupid, daft, naïve, simple, fool, idiot, clown, funny man, one who is easily cheated” and similar pejorative terms. The slang of bobo, bubie, translates to “dunce”. Variations of this word exist in other languages (such as Latin), with their meaning being “to stammer”.[1] Thus, the term “booby trap” gives rise to the idea that an individual with the misfortune to be caught in the trap does so because the individual is a “booby”, or that an individual who is caught in the trap thereby becomes a “booby”.
The word has also been applied to the Sula genus of sea birds, with their common name being boobies. These birds, adapted for sea flight and swimming, have large flat feet and wide wingspans, making it difficult for them to run or take flight quickly. As a result, they are considered clumsy and easy to catch when onshore.[2] They are also known for landing aboard seagoing vessels, whereupon they have been eaten by the crew.[3]
In approximately 1590, the word began appearing in the English language as booby, meaning “stupid person, slow bird”.[4]
The phrase booby trap originally applied to schoolboy pranks, but took on its more sinister connotation during World War I.[4]
A group of 105mm artillery shellswith plastic explosive stuffed into their fuze pockets. Each of the 5 shells has been linked together with red detcordto make them detonate simultaneously. To turn this assembly into a booby trap, the final step would be to connect an M142 firing device to the detcord and hide everything under some form of cover e.g. newspapers or a bed-sheet.
Boobytrap firing devices, c. 1941: Press, pull and release switches; mass-produced components intended for the construction of booby traps.[5]
A military booby trap may be designed to kill or injure a person who activates its trigger, or employed to reveal the location of an enemy by setting off a signalling device. Most, but not all, military booby traps involve explosives.
There is no clear division between a booby trap and buried conventional land mines triggered by a tripwire or directional mine. Other, similar devices include spring-guns and mechanisms such as the SM-70 directional antipersonnel mine.
What distinguishes a booby trap is that its activation is intended to be unexpected to its victim. Thus booby trap design is widely varied, with traps or their trigger mechanisms often hidden. Frequently at least part of the device is improvised from standard ordnance, such as an artillery shell,[6]grenade, or high explosive. However, some mines have features specifically designed for incorporation into booby traps and armies have been equipped with a variety of mass-produced triggering mechanisms intended to be employed in booby traps deployment.
Part of the skill in placing booby traps lies in exploiting natural human behaviors such as habit, self-preservation, curiosity or acquisitiveness. A common trick is to provide victims with a simple solution to a problem, for example, leaving only one door open in an otherwise secure building, thereby luring them straight toward the firing mechanism.[7]
An example that exploits an instinct for self-preservation was used in the Vietnam War. Spikes known as Punji sticks were hidden in grassy areas. When fired upon soldiers instinctively sought to take cover by throwing themselves down on the ground, impaling themselves on the spikes.[8]
Attractive or interesting objects are frequently used as bait. For example, troops could leave behind empty beer bottles and a sealed wooden packing case with “Scotch Whisky” marked on it before leaving an area. The rubble-filled packing case might be resting on top of an M5[9] or M142 firing device,[10][11] connected to some blocks of TNT or to some C4 explosive stuffed into the empty fuze pocket of a mortar shell. Alternatively, the weight of the packing case might simply be holding down the arming lever of an RGD-5 grenade with a zero-delay fuze fitted and the pin removed. Either way, when the case is moved; the booby trap detonates, killing or severely injuring anyone in the immediate area. Many different types of bait object can be used e.g. soldiers will be tempted to kick an empty beer can lying on the ground as they walk past it. However, the can (partially filled with sand to add weight) may be resting on top of an M5 pressure-release firing device screwed into a buried M26 grenade.
Many purpose-built booby-trap firing devices exist such as the highly versatile M142[12][13] universal firing device (identical to the British L5A1[14] or Australian F1A1[15]), or Yugoslavian UMNOP-1[16]which allow a variety of different ways of triggering explosives e.g. via trip wire (either pulling it or releasing the tension on it),[17] direct pressure on an object (e.g. standing on it), or pressure release (lift/shift something) etc.[18][19][20][21]
Almost any item can be booby-trapped in some way. For example, booby trapping a flashlight is a classic tactic: a flashlight already contains most of the required components. First of all, the flashlight acts as bait, tempting the victim to pick it up. More importantly, it is easy to conceal a detonator, some explosives, and batteries inside the flashlight casing. A simple electrical circuit is connected to the on/off switch. When the victim attempts to turn the flashlight on to see if it works, the resulting explosion blows their hand or arm off and possibly blinds them.[22][23]
The only limits to the intricacy of booby-traps are the skill and inventiveness of the people placing them. For example, the “bait object” (e.g. a cash box in a corner of the room) which lures victims into the trap may not in fact be booby-trapped at all. However, the furniture which must be pushed away in order to get to the bait has a wire attached, with an M142 firing device connected to a 155mm artillery shell on the other end of it.[24]
A booby trap may be of any size. However, as a general rule the size of most explosive booby traps use between 250 g and 1 kg of explosive. Since most booby traps are rigged to detonate within a metre of the victim’s body, this is adequate to kill or severely wound.[24][25]
As a rule, booby-traps are planted in any situation where there is a strong likelihood of them being encountered and triggered by the targeted victims. Typically, they are planted in places that people are naturally attracted to or are forced to use. The list of likely placement areas includes:[26]
the only abandoned houses left standing in a village, which may attract enemy soldiers seeking shelter.
a door, drawer or cupboard inside a building that someone will open without thinking of what might be connected to it. If a door is locked, this makes people believe there could something valuable behind it so they are more likely to kick it open, with fatal results.
vehicles abandoned by the roadside, perhaps with some kind of victim “bait” left on the back seat such as a suitcase or large cardboard box.
natural choke-points, such as the only footbridge across a river, which people must use whether they want to or not.
important strategic installations such as airfields, railway stations and harbour facilities, all of which the invading forces will want to occupy and use.
anything of use or value that people would naturally want to possess or which makes them curious to see what is inside it, e.g. a crate of beer, a pistol, a flashlight, discarded army rucksack or even a picture torn out of a pornographic magazine.
A booby trap does not necessarily incorporate explosives in its construction. Examples include the punji sticks mentioned above and deadfall traps which employ heavy objects set up to fall on and crush whoever disturbs the trigger mechanism. However, setting non-explosive booby traps is labour-intensive and time-consuming, they are harder to conceal and they are less likely to do serious damage. In contrast, booby traps containing explosives are much more destructive: they will either kill their victims or severely wound them.[26][27][28]
In addition to the obvious ability of booby traps to kill or injure, their presence has other effects such as these:
demoralize soldiers as booby traps kill or maim comrades
keep soldiers continually stressed, suspicious and unable to relax because it is difficult for them to know which areas, buildings or objects are safe
slow down troop movement as soldiers are forced to sweep areas to see if there are more booby traps.
make soldiers cautious instead of aggressive and confident
create no-go areas (real or imagined) after a booby trap has killed or wounded someone
cause a section or platoon to have to stop in order to deal with casualties, thus slowing and delaying those troops
create confusion and disorientation as a prelude to an ambush
Booby traps are indiscriminate weapons. Like anti-personnel mines, they can harm civilians and other noncombatants (during and after the conflict) who are unaware of their presence. Therefore, it is vitally important for any force which places booby traps to keep an accurate record of their location so they can be cleared when the conflict is over.
A type of booby-trap was referred to in an 1839 news story in The Times.[29]
During the Vietnam War, motorcycles were rigged with explosives by the National Liberation Front and abandoned. U.S. soldiers would be tempted to ride the motorcycle and thus trigger the explosives. In addition, NLF soldiers would rig rubber band grenades and place them in huts that US soldiers would likely burn. Another popular booby trap was the “Grenade in a Can“, a grenade with the safety pin removed in a container and a string attached, sometimes with the grenade’s fuse mechanism modified to give a much shorter delay than the four to seven seconds typical with grenade fuses. The NLF soldiers primarily used these on doors and attached them to tripwires on jungle paths.[30]
The CIA and Green Berets countered by booby-trapping the enemy’s ammunition supplies, in an operation code-named “Project Eldest Son.” The propellant in a rifle or machine-gun cartridge was replaced with high explosive. Upon being fired, the sabotaged round would destroy the gun and kill or injure the shooter. Mortar shells were similarly rigged to explode when dropped down the tube, instead of launching properly. This ammunition was then carefully re-packed to eliminate any evidence of tampering, and planted in enemy munitions dumps by covert insertion teams. A sabotaged round might also be planted in a rifle magazine or machine-gun belt and left on the body of a dead NLF soldier, in anticipation that the deceased’s ammo would be picked up and used by his comrades. No more than one sabotaged round would be planted in any case, magazine, or belt of ammunition, to reduce the chances of the enemy finding it no matter how diligently they inspected their supplies. False rumors and forged documents were circulated to make it appear that the Communist Chinese were supplying the NLF with defective weapons and ammunition.[31]
During the “Troubles” in Northern Ireland, booby trap bombs were often used by the Provisional Irish Republican Army(IRA) to kill British Army soldiers and Royal Ulster Constabulary officers. A common method was attaching the bomb to a vehicle so that starting or driving it would detonate the explosive. According to the Sutton Index of Deaths, 180 deaths during the Troubles were the result of booby trap bombs, the vast majority of them laid by the Provisional IRA.[32]
During the Al-Aqsa Intifada, some Arab-Palestinian groups made wide use of booby traps.
The largest use of booby traps (between 2000–2005, the period of the Intifada) was in the Battle of Jenin during Operation Defensive Shield where a large number (1000-2000 according to Palestinian militant captured in Jenin during the battle[33]) of explosive devices were planted by insurgents. Booby traps had been laid in the streets of both the camp and the town, ready to be triggered if a foot snagged a tripwire or a vehicle rolled over a mine. Some of the bombs were huge, containing as much as 250 lb (110 kg) of explosives.[34] To counter the booby traps, anti-tank and anti-personnel mines the IDF sent armored D9 bulldozers to clear the area out of any explosive device and booby trap planted. The IDF D9 bulldozers were heavily armored and thus did not sustain any damage from the explosions, which were triggered by them as they pushed forwards. Eventually, a dozen D9 bulldozers went into action, razing the center of the refugee camp and forcing the Palestinian militants inside to surrender.
As a rule, most purpose-made military booby-trap firing devices contain some form of spring-loadedfiring pin designed to strike a percussion cap connected to a detonator at one end. The detonator is inserted into an explosive charge e.g. C4 or a block of TNT. Triggering the booby-trap (e.g. by pulling on a trip-wire) releases the cocked firing pin which flips forward to strike the percussion cap, firing both it and the attached detonator. The resulting shock-wave from the detonator sets off the main explosive charge.
Simple Trou de loupbooby trap: concealed pitfall with sharp spike at the bottom
USSR booby trap firing device – pull fuze: normally connected to a tripwire
Alternative design of USSR booby trap firing device – pull fuze: normally connected to tripwire
USSR boobytrap firing device – pressure fuze: victim steps on loose floorboard with fuze concealed underneath
Booby traps can also be applied as defensive weapons against unwelcome guests or against non-military trespassers, and some people set up traps in their homes to keep people from entering. Laws vary: the creator of the trap may be immune from prosecution since the victim is trespassing, or the home owner may be held liable for injuries caused to the trespasser. Booby traps can also be a manner in which to catch a criminal vandalizing items or areas in which there was no permission given to alter.
Many computer viruses take the form of booby traps in that they are triggered when an unsuspecting user performs an apparently ordinary action such as opening an email attachment.[35]
Instead of being used to kill, maim or injure people, booby traps can also be used for entertainment. Practical joke booby traps are typically disguised as everyday items such as cigars or packets of chewing gum, nuts or other snack items. When the victims attempts to use the item, the trap is triggered. Two of the best known examples of this are the exploding cigar and dribble glass; others include the Snake Nut Can and shocking gum. Booby traps can also be constructed out of household or workplace items and be triggered when the victim performs a common action. Examples of this include loosening the bolts in a chair so that it collapses when sat upon, or placing a bucket of water on top of a partly open door so that when the door is fully opened, the bucket tips onto the victim.[36] A variant is the water bucket which when “thrown” at the target, is full of confetti.
There are few manufacturers that have a long-storied history in the defense industry as Winchester. Undoubtedly, few things are more formidable or reliable in battle than a 12-gauge pump action shotgun. Winchester’s Model 1897 has proven over time to be a reliable firearm for protection of America’s finest.
The Winchester 1897 shotgun is seminal Americana. Produced up until 1957, around a million copies entered circulation.
Eddie Mangione had grown up with literally nothing on a rural farm in Tennessee. Now he was a world away squatting in the fetid trenches of war-torn France. For Eddie the summer of 1918 had become surreal and otherworldly.
Eddie had joined the U.S. Marines for all the timeless reasons young men join the Marines. He wanted out of his drab familiar world, and military service overseas promised adventure, exotic locales, and camaraderie. Like so many others before and since Eddie found that reality differed from the lies the recruiters peddled. The adventure was horrifying, the exotic locale was dank, rotten, and miserable, and the camaraderie involved watching his friends get torn to pieces by artillery. He had only been in the trenches a month.
His fellow Marines clutched their 03 Springfield rifles. These instruments turned the Marine rifleman into a deadly agent of chaos. Their French Chauchaut light machineguns were utter rubbish, but these beautiful Springfields were perfected tools of the riflemen’s art. Eddie’s backwoods Southern upbringing had ultimately put a different weapon in his hands. Eddie’s stiff terrified fingers curled around the walnut stocks of a Winchester 1897 Trench Gun 12-gauge.
Eddie’s mission was to knock incoming German hand grenades aside before they could land in the trenches. Pushing nine OO buckshot pellets per round and carrying five rounds on board, Eddie’s shotgun had successfully accomplished this feat twice already. Eddie’s reputation as a backwoods wing shooter had been well founded.
The enemy artillery barrage finally lifted after what seemed an eternity. Several ears were bleeding from the overpressure, but the Hun artillery had not adequately ranged the thin linear targets that were the Allied trenches. Everyone in Eddie’s platoon still drew breath.
From 1897 to 1957 over 1 million of these shotguns were produced and notably during World War 1 and trench warfare. Eddie’s story is not unique. It’s a small glimpse into the reputation that makes a Winchester shotgun a legendary trench warfare tool.
Hunting Arm, Combat Tool, Gangster Gun
John Moses Browning holding the Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR) at the Winchester plant.
The influence of John Moses Browning on the world of firearms cannot be overstated. He designed several familiar lever-action Winchester rifles, some of the most influential handguns ever built, and all of the successful repeating shotguns available in the first part of the 20th century. At the time of his death, the man held 128 patents for various firearm-related inventions. His repertoire spanned the spectrum from .25-caliber pocket pistols to 37mm aircraft cannons. His 1897 shotgun ushered in a new era in scattergun technology.
The 1897 was itself an evolutionary development of the previous model 1893. The 1893 slide action gun bears an esoteric similarity to its later sibling but came up in the era of low-pressure blackpowder shotgun shells. The Model 1897 incorporated a stronger steel receiver that better surrounded the gun’s bolt. The resulting weapon was proofed for higher-pressure smokeless rounds. The 1897 was available in both fixed and takedown variants.
Despite being born in 1907, my high-mileage 1897 Winchester runs low brass birdshot as fast as you can cycle the action. I’d be slow to feed it large quantities of buckshot or slugs, however.
Once broken down the 1897 Winchester takes up very little space. This feature allowed for easy storage or concealment, depending on which side of the law you might find yourself.
As a sporting arm, the 1897 was fabulously successful. The gun cost $25 new when originally introduced and could be had with barrels reaching out to 36 inches. The external hammer served as a manual safety, and the American walnut stocks exuded a lithe almost effeminate vibe. However, the lack of a manual disconnector meant that the gunner could hold down the trigger and empty a five-round magazine as fast as he could cycle the forearm. Extending a tab on the far end of the magazine tube and rotating the assembly allowed the gun to break in half at the front of the receiver via interrupted threads. As a result, the 97 could be tucked into compact spaces for storage or concealment.
The militarized version of the weapon was universally referred to as the Trench Gun. This variant started as a 20-inch barreled 1897 to which was affixed a sheet steel heat shield-cum-bayonet lug and sling swivels. In this configuration, the Trench Gun saw action in both World Wars as well as a variety of brushfire conflicts in between. Though the guts of the gun resemble a sewing machine for their complexity, the 1897 Winchester rendered reliable service and was well-received by the troops who wielded it.
An original Winchester Model 1897 Trench shotgun. Photo Courtesy: Winchester Repeating Arms
Resurrecting the Dead
If your gun collecting proclivities wander toward rarefied stuff like period Western guns or, Lord help you, transferable automatic weapons then you’d best be shaved and prepped to hock a kidney to pay for your habit. However, in the case of cool old shooters like the 1897 Winchester, getting into a facsimile of the guns used by J. Edgar Hoover’s G-Men to bring down Dillinger and Capone need not be spendy. A million of these old scatterguns rolled off the lines before production ceased in 1957. That means high mileage used versions are plentiful and cheap.
I found a shopworn 1897 that sported an absurdly long 34-inch barrel, little remaining finish, and an ugly home-built stock extension for a cool $250. While that was indeed a good deal, these old guns float around auction websites for a bit more than that all the time. Given the gun’s advanced age I could transfer it straight to my doorstep via my personal Curio and Relic FFL. Where others might see dingy, tired, and ugly, I sensed a diamond in the rough.
To break the gun down one simply presses this rod to the other side and uses it to unscrew the magazine tube about a quarter turn. John Browning had a gift for such as this.
So long as care is exercised anyone with access to a table saw and drill press can do a professional job shortening a shotgun barrel. I touched up the cut end with my Dremel tool and fabricated a new front sight from a machine screw.
The gun was mechanically intact, and the takedown feature works as well today as it did when the gun first rolled off the Winchester line in 1907. The freckled brown patina lends the gun a pleasant been-there done-that ambiance. The inimitable American Walnut furniture ages better than Christie Brinkley.
Chopping the Tube
I have shortened a lot of shotgun barrels in my day and have found that all you really need to do it well is a table saw, a drill press, and a little patience. Run a cleaning rod down the barrel and mark the point where it meets the muzzle. This is the initial barrel length. If you want a fixed point like 18 inches for legality or, in this case, 20 inches for historical cred, just subtract that from your measured barrel length and make a mark with a Sharpie marker that far back from the muzzle. Wrap that spot in masking tape for a precise cut.
Mount up a fiber-reinforced cutoff wheel on your table saw and cut the barrel a time or two near the muzzle to get a feel for things. Tape an old towel over the top of your saw to protect the finish on the barrel. When you are comfortable with your technique, make your final cut in a single smooth motion. You can then dress the cut end with a Dremel tool and a sanding drum. If you are careful the pruned tube will look factory perfect.
The exposed hammer on the 1897 Winchester shotgun serves as a manual safety.
Brass front sight beads are available online, but I’m cheap. I typically chuck a machine screw into my drill press and grind the head down into a ball with a file. Carefully spot the hole for your new front sight with a spring-loaded center punch, drill it meticulously with your drill press, and thread the hole with a hand tap. Seat the new sight with red thread locker. Then go back with the Dremel tool sanding drum to polish the stubby end of the new sight flat from inside the bore. If you want real performance from your new shortened barrel you can have the bore threaded internally for a choke tube.
Cogitations
The end result looks like something Elliot Ness might wield on his late-night raids against Al Capone’s Speakeasies yet set me back a whopping $250. Should you be in the market for a really inexpensive hunting arm, these old shotguns really never wear out. My resurrected 1897 runs birdshot like a champ as fast as you can cycle the action even at 110 years old.
Care must be exercised while working the action to avoid scuffing your hand with the bolt.
The 1897 Winchester armed generations of American hunters, Law Enforcement Officers, criminals, and soldiers on their enterprises of sustenance, peacekeeping, crime, and combat. The gun’s takedown feature brings a capacity for
Originally only chambered in 12 gauge and 16 gauge, the Model 1897 cost $25 and barrel lengths ranged from 20 to 30 inches.
stowage or concealment not rivaled today. The restoration project also represents an inexpensive and fun way to kill an otherwise lazy Saturday afternoon.
For more information about Winchester shotguns, click here.
To purchase a Winchester Model 1987 on GunsAmerica, click here.
Simple Trou de loupbooby trap: concealed pitfall with sharp spike at the bottom
Alternative design of USSR booby trap firing device – pull fuze: normally connected to tripwire
USSR boobytrap firing device – pressure fuze: victim steps on loose floorboard with fuze concealed underneath
