Who knows about troubleshooting Ithaca shotgun issues?

[Black_Talon]

1) Try some decent ammo through it. That Walmart Promo stuff is troublesome, even in good guns. The WW seems to be the worst, followed by the Remington and then the Federal, in that order.

2) If no love with good ammo, contact Les Hovenkamp at www.diamondgunsmithing.com. He was the head gunsmith at Ithaca until they closed in NY, then he went out on his own. An email or a quick phone call my get you a diagnosis.

EDIT: Something's really farked up with the forum time right now. I posted this at 5:07 PM, yet the forum clock claims it's 1:53AM, so it put my reply in front of the OP's original question. Sorry (but it ain't my fault )

[savasyn]

Who knows about troubleshooting Ithaca shotgun issues?

I bought a used Ithaca M87 a while back, looks just like the M37 pictured below.
I've only had it out once(no local indoor ranges allow stockless shotguns) and I quickly found out that I had to loosen the barrel locking jam nut at the end of the magazine tube a bit to get it to cycle at all once fired. If the jam nut was all the way tight, once fired, the action would completely lock closed. Loosen the jam nut a notch or two and it worked just fine. This seems rather odd to me that you would /have/ to loosen the nut holding the barrel on. Btw, it does not have this problem when dry cycling, only after a shell has been fired.

As I've only taken it out the one time, I only had access to one type of ammo and it was that cheap bulk stuff you can get at Walmart. I've heard that this stuff has trouble in other shotguns so maybe it's just a function of the ammo.

Any other thoughts as to what might be happening?

[savasyn]

Thanks for the info! I will do definitely give him a call if good ammo doesn't work.
Yeah, I've seen the timestamp issues in a number of threads now, weird.

1) Try some decent ammo through it. That Walmart Promo stuff is troublesome, even in good guns. The WW seems to be the worst, followed by the Remington and then the Federal, in that order.

2) If no love with good ammo, contact Les Hovenkamp at www.diamondgunsmithing.com. He was the head gunsmith at Ithaca until they closed in NY, then he went out on his own. An email or a quick phone call my get you a diagnosis.

EDIT: Something's really farked up with the forum time right now. I posted this at 5:07 PM, yet the forum clock claims it's 1:53AM, so it put my reply in front of the OP's original question. Sorry (but it ain't my fault )

[-hanko]

Btw, it does not have this problem when dry cycling, only after a shell has been fired.

As I've only taken it out the one time, I only had access to one type of ammo and it was that cheap bulk stuff you can get at Walmart.

I tried posting back yesterday about this time, system hung & never posted the message. Anyway, Black Talon is correct...

Try some known good ammo (Winchester, Remington, etc.). If the problem remainds, something is the matter w/ the shell's fit in the chamber (headspace). Loosening the barrel nut fixes the problem since it allows the barrel to move forward and lengthen the chamber just enough to unlock the bolt.

Older 37's need a smith with gages to adjust the headspace, newer guns have a design change that allows barrel interchangeability without adjustment.

Nice gun, btw Parkerized??

hth

-hanko