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My Model 12's have an 80-year history in my family. There have been no gun-related failures in the last 50 years, and none before that that I know of; except for a custom stock on one of them and the front bead on the other, the guns have the original parts they came to my father, and then to me with 60 years ago when my grandfather gave them to my Dad. I never heard of any gun-related failures in their entire history as a part of my family, so I believe the guns to be almost 100% original. They were made and bought new in 1927.
They have had who knows how many thousands of rounds through them. About 90% of their use was shooting in organized competition in trap- 75 or more shots at least once a week for 30 years in my father's and my custodianship plus a practice round or two for warmup, and similar numbers when they belonged to my grandfather when my Dad was a kid learning shotgunning; pheasant and deer hunting for most of their time with my grandfather and my Dad; plinking at hand-tossed clay targets now and then when learning how to shoot a shotgun, for 3 generations of kids being taught those skills. They are a part of the gun legacy handed down to me as the first of my generation in my father's family, and will be handed down to my sons when I'm gone, along with other heirloom guns reaching back to the Revolutionary War.
They are high quality guns because they were made to be, their reliability is of the highest level, they shoot straight and function with minimum input by the shooter, and they last for generations. Any improvements brought by newer designs built to newer standards with newer techniques might be able to improve on some of that, but not enough to interest me, and none of them can match a reputation of 80-odd years of faithful service- not yet anyway.
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