doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Ithaca best fluid steel question

If the gun is 12 gauge it will handle at least 2&3/4 inch shells. Looks like a very nice earlier high grade NID. I have a similar Kydex comb on mine.

grade 2, I think...

1 1/8 oz bismuth loads should be about right for ducks...

Stan would know, re shot size and chokes...

1 1/8 oz of Bismuth has roughly the same pellet count as 1 1/4 oz lead. 4s or 5s work well in my experience for decoyed birds. I usually use 5s..

I often use 1 1/4 oz lead loading recipes.

I didn't pick up the be aware of as pay attention, I get it now.
thanks

The gun grade will be stamped on the watertable. I think it a Grade 3 or 4. From what I've seen the first grade with checkered cheeks is a Grade 5. This cheek checkering may be aftermarket.

Looks like a nice fully optioned NID No. 4E with the cocking indicators and the short, bulky, beavertail forearm that indicates an earlier gun, 1926 to 34.



The No. 4E normally does not have checkered stock cheeks --



so that checkering may be covering a repair of a split in the head of the stock or the stock is a replacement.

IIRC all of the Flues and later guns were 2 3/4 chambered from the factory. That said, I had a 1935 New Ithaca Field Grade that must have had short forcing cones because it was the hardest kicking 7 3/4 lb gun I have ever shot. Traded it off before I got into measuring tools like Skeets bore gauges and Walker chamber gauges, so I dont really know what it measured. A beautiful Grade 4 you have there.

An unfortunately small image of Ithaca's "Best Fluid Steel" with the marks of Delcour-Dupont/Canons Delcour the tube maker, who used Cockerill fluid steel, as did almost all the U.S. double gun makers.



Walt Snyder graciously shared a 1919 Ithaca Gun Co. letter from A.P. Curtis, General Manager requesting tensile strength testing on a section “cut from a barrel made in Belgium” to be performed by E.J. Stormer of Racine, Wisconsin. The letter did not indicate if the barrels were “Smokeless Powder Steel” used on the Field grade, “Fluid Steel” or “Nitro Steel” used on the No. 1 and No. 1 1/2, or Cockerill Steel used on the No. 1 Special (discontinued that year). Krupp was offered during that period on higher grades. Tensile strength was reported to be “about 70,000” psi. Composition was similar to AISI 1030.
"Best Fluid Steel" used on NIDs may have been a higher grade steel.