I have always kept the gun clean and rust has not been a problem. I've read that this process produces a very durable quality barrel. The receiver is solid steel with light engraving and the barrel is roto forged - that is to say, the barrel is shaped while red hot by rotary hammers. The stock is made of American walnut and is nice enough, although the checkering is pressed in and not nearly as appealing as hand- or laser-cut checkering. It is very soft shooting and balances and points well. Let me first mention some qualities of the M51. I'd like to pass on some of this knowledge for those experiencing similar problems. That long road of frustration is how I went from knowing nothing about the internals of the gun to becoming intimately knowledgeable of even the smallest parts. That is a humorous way of saying that the gun wouldn't fully cycle the 2nd and 3rd shells in the magazine.įrom 2000 until 2014, I experienced years of repeated failures to restore my gun to semiautomatic status. Around the year 2000, during an outing for Canada geese, my M51 started giving me problems and went from being a reliable semiautomatic to a reliable single-shot. I'm equally culpable, because it never occurred to me that the gun might need to be periodically inspected. My dad taught me a lot of things, but he neglected to explain to me how to thoroughly clean and inspect my shotgun for wear. During the first twenty years (circa 1980-2000) my Ithaca was reliable despite rarely receiving more than a light cleaning of the barrel and a general wipe down. It was in fact, the only gun that I owned. I hunted small game and waterfowl off and on for nearly thirty years with my M51. The list of registered serial numbers for the M51 seems to have equally evaporated when Ithaca went through restructuring in the late 1980s, which now makes it almost impossible to even date the production year of specific M51s. Unfortunately, when reading about the M51 semiautomatic, the adjective "reliable" rarely precedes the M51, which is perhaps the best explanation for the gun's relative obscurity today. Mention Ithaca shotguns today and most people think immediately of the Model 37 pump action, one of Ithaca's most successful and reliable shotguns and the only model still in production today by Ithaca Gun Co., now of Ohio.
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