The last issue is arguably the most serious and the one that really leads to folks selling, parting out, or tossing their gun in a lake – it snaps its own slide assembly bars.The second issue is the main action spring will compress over time and cause the gun to not fully cycle on the ejection stroke and “reload” a spent cartridge, or jam with the bolt open in a half-stroke state.This can cause the gun not to cycle correctly. The first is the nylon bushings (there are two) tend to fail after a while as the nylon from the ’70s wasn’t great and good old-fashioned gun oil would help to dissolve them over time.There are three main failure points to the gun that you will hear about: In short, the gun has a few things that can contribute to it not cycling properly or at all in some cases. The second issue is much more the 51’s design. The level of precision that is commonplace today just wasn’t possible 40 years ago. If you look at most gas-operated shotguns of the 70’s era many, if not most, of them have some pretty glaring faults that manufacturers were trying to work through before the age of computer-aided design and computer-controlled machining. I’m going to give Ithaca a lot of leeway here when I say that parts, materials, and design/testing were not up to the level that a company can bring to bear today. The first is the limited materials/engineering of 1970’s level technology and the others manifest themselves by way of some design flaws that marry up in the model 51 to make a perfect storm of frustration. The poor model 51 is the problem child of two main contributing factors I can see. As it turns out, it’s one of the guns that I’m positive Ithaca themselves in their current iteration would rather not have to think about again. The Model 51 was built from the early 1970s to 1987. Though this gun is one of those models that comes with a big asterisk beside the name. Coupled with the tasteful engraving from the factory and a walnut stock – it’s a great deal of shotgun for the money.
Ithaca 37 shotgun repair full#
It’s soft on the shoulder, with a high comb, a nice ventilated barrel, double beaded sight, and a full barrel choke. It rapidly became one of, if not my outright favorite, shotgun to bust clays with. Almost a year ago to the day I traded some work for an Ithaca Model 51 Featherlight autoloading shotgun.