Mom handed me a box and says "the rust is bad , I didn't know the 97' was still in the box .
Like all things there's more to the story. Circa 1960-62' when 97' Winchesters were still cheap and everywhere my Dad picked one up , being a quite reliable arm , he felt it would be a good fowler for Mom and it fit her pretty well . Of course the full choke was lopped of at some point and a Poly Choke fitted . The Poly Choke is of course stuck as of now . The bluing wasn't great 40 yr ago but wasn't a collector then either . Just another working gun built in 1927.
Dad made the take down sized but very spacious box with brass fittings from the leftover birch plywood he built the cabinets from in our first house circa 1969-70' . 6 sides all mitered together with perfect fit top and bottom. A little free hand art and a couple of coats of Vari-Thane . Red flannel and upholstery foam rubber lined . I didn't get those skills .
Basically this stuff has been around as long as I can remember. It might have a little personal connection.
The rust wasn't more than 10% of the anticipated horror . No barrel pits , dabbing the moving parts in Kroil brought overnight gratification for those that wouldn't move 0000 steel wool and 3 in 1 fixed most of what remained. Lots of dark spots but no depth . Well none deeper than the adjacent beauty marks . The woods not much to look at just basic factory mostly straight walnut .
There's just nothing really remarkable about it other than being a 97 yr old serviceable 97' Winchester. Maybe it does have something. As I marvel at the old girl something looked off about the line . Sure enough I picked her about a minute ago and she has about 3/8-1/2" of cast off ....... Yep somewhere along the line the stock got either by age , accident or a deliberate act fitted for a lefty .
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