Huh? A norinco for this money?

[emmagee1917]

The trench guns were made in China under contract from a person in the USA . He supplied the wood for the stocks and set down standards for the work that had to be met. We have a couple down here and I own one . They were gone through when bought and the actions smoothed a bit more and some small burrs and such cleaned up. They have both functioned very well over the last several years and compare well with my refinished Winchester . The only "problem" we had was my friend decided he'd shoot his with a bayonet attached and the heatshield jumped out of the bbl. notches and slid forward. There is a night and day difference between these trench guns and the other copies.
Chris

[gwp]

Here is information about the quality of Chinese 1897 shotguns as used in Cowboy Action Shooting.

http://www.curtrich.com/GettingStarted05.html

The Chinese ‘97s

‘97s have been imported under more than one brand name. Early Norincos were pretty terrible. They were improved mightily after Coyote Cap made several trips to China to get the production down right. The importer changed to Interstate Arms. The year of production was important. Serial numbers started with the year, 04 being the earliest of the guns that were "right." 05 and 06 prefix guns were good.

Current Chinese '97s
You might find guns with "IAC" listed as manufacturer. They have recently started importing guns again. These seem to be okay.
TTN imported a lot of guns that should not have been sold, with parts that just did not fit. Many gunsmiths will not work on a TTN as a result.

Polytech '97s
The gestation and name changes have gotten confusing. TTN became Polytech. Cimarron imports Polytech '97s. I talked with Robert at Cimarron, and he said out of 700, 50 came back for repairs.

[emmagee1917]

Mine is an IAC gun . Serial # MIL96XX. It is a good one.
Chris

[Dave in NGA]

I also have a IAC example. It looks like it was a salesman's sample gun it has such nice looking wood on it.

The early examples I saw looked like the stocks were made from cross ties. Somewhere in the production cycle they really stepped up their QA program. Maybe the Chinese got themselves a new set of 'motivated' slave laborers?

[Cecil]

The shot gun hasn't gone up in value. Somebody just went down in brain cells. He ever tries to recoup that purchase price and he will be in for big surprise.

[scosgt]

I have two of them. BOTH are marked "Norinco 97" and serials are MIL73XX and MIL74XX.
They both have very nice stocks. I have not shot them and do not intend to do. Bought them to put away, figured some day 50 years from now they might be worth something, since originals are so scarce and expensive.
Always hoped that Winchester would bring out a "replica" Trench Gun, but I suppose they would be way to expensive to produce here. I think I paid around $325 each for my guns.