Читать книгу Gun Digest 2011 онлайн

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The external fiberglass surface of the barrel made it virtually impossible to install one of the then-popular aftermarket external collet type external chokes. Remember the PolyChoke? To compensate for this, in 1961 Winchester introduced a removable/interchangeable choke, threaded into the muzzle end of the steel liner of the barrel. An inch or so of the removable choke extended beyond the muzzle. The external portion had a series of transverse slots serving as a muzzle brake, as was common with many of those external collet chokes. While Modified chokes were fitted as standard, extra Versalite (as Winchester called them) choke tubes were available in improved cylinder and full constrictions, for an extra $4.95 each. They were supplied with a flat stamped sheet metal wrench for easy removal. In actual practice they could be easily changed by hand. Yes, the model 59 introduced the now ubiquitous choke tubes! And after the passing of the Model 59, that idea lay dormant for decades.

In addition to its lightweight barrel, the Model 59 also had a lightweight aluminum receiver. These advances resulted in a 12 gauge autoloader that weighed only a little over 6 pounds! The gun’s predecessor, the Model 50, weighed about 7-3/4 pounds. Incidentally, there was also a lightweight version of the Model 50 with an aluminum receiver, which weighed a little less.