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Garage sale find

John A.

John A.

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I have a friend who was putting stuff out for his annual garage sale.

He messaged saying he is going to put some old guns out if I wanted first dibs on any of them.

He had a couple that would have been nice to have, but I was drawn to an old Remington 870 Magnum.

Factory 20 inch cylinder barrel. Nice wood stock and handguard. Reinforced front sight bead base.

Got it home and ran the date code on the barrel, find out it's even more desirable than I had thought. Turns out, it's a 1962 production.

Action is smooth as silk and other than blueing wear, which is expected and easily remedied, is in really good shape. It's built like a tank.

And I brought it home for less than $150.

Yeah, I know, pics or it didn't happen.

rem 870 magnum 014.JPG

rem 870 magnum 012.JPG
rem 870 magnum 011.JPG
rem 870 magnum 010.JPG
rem 870 magnum 008.JPG
 
I haven't owned a Remington (anything) in years. And started to pass on this one too, until I saw that it was one of the older guns, then my interest peaked because I know the older guns are typically better quality than newer guns.

I'm debating on whether to re-blue the barrel and mag tube. It wouldn't hurt it either way. I don't see a lot of collector value here considering the overall condition of the gun when I picked it up. It's been used, no doubt there. But was taken pretty good care of overall considering that it's more than 50 years old from what I can tell from the date codes.

I am definitely going to add a mag extension. That's a given. Probably not much else.
 
Nice score. I'd reblue it. You have the capability, and are good at it.
 
Good may be a bit of a stretch, but it would be pretty simple to darken it back up some. May even go over the receiver with some satin black cerakote for good measure.

Going to clean up the wood with some Murphy's oil soap.

 
Thanks guys.

Yeah I agree Dj, the new plastic stuff just doesn't have the soul of old blued steel and wood.
 
Me either.

I did find some reference to the 870 magnum receiver being introduced in '60, but am not sure for how long it was offered.

It would appear that like Mossberg, Remington has variants of their variants in their model designations, so I don't know.

http://www.remingtonsociety.org/collecting-870-shotguns/

rem magnum.PNG

Also found this:

1980
Remington introduced a new stock styling and checkering pattern on all Model 870 shotguns.


----------------------------------------

I noticed that my stock and forend has no checkering. And while the gun I have doesn't have the same style forend that's in the picture above, the butt pad is made the same, and there are things that make me agree with you because I don't know what kind of coating is on the receiver, but there are things that make me think it's older too. Or at least a lot of older parts too, but I don't know what the point of that would be. ????

And the mag tube had as much wear on the blue as the barrel did. Not just in the back where the forend was sliding against it, but in front near the barrel lug too.

Either way, I'm going to clean it up a little. If nothing else, I'll throw it on my 4 wheeler for snakes

and stuff. ;)
 
It looks like a really interesting shotgun John. Congrats on a slick shooter at a very decent price.

My thoughts are that it is a Frankenstein assembly. The receiver isn't old and it's been spray painted. I am thinking that it isn't machined from bar stock like they did way back when. More like stamped. The wood and barrel are just fascinating as they are certainly vintage.

Can you get a date of manufacture off the serial number? That barrel is freaking priceless. Is is choked FULL or Modified?
 
That's a great find and precisely the kind of Remington I'd like to find as well, in particular, one of the older police magnums.
 
Nitesite, the barrel is very interesting to me.

It is stamped cyl.

It also has more than a half dozen other proof marks and stuff stamped into it.

8 marks from my count to be specific, not counting the choke/bore marking.

I have seen old military rifle barrels that don't have as many marks on them as this one does.

rem proof marks 001.JPG
rem proof marks 002.JPG
rem proof marks 003.JPG


And I believe the mag tube is the one that was with the barrel as well. They both looked the same (patina).

I've looked closely at the receiver. I don't think that it's spray paint.

It is some kind of coating, and certainly not blueing. But what exactly, I honestly don't know. I wish I did though. It seems pretty tough. It may be truck bed liner ?????

I thought about emailing the serial to Remington to see if they can nail down a date. Not that it matters to me, other than to satisfy my curiousity.
 
Found an interesting chart that explains some of the proof marks.

remington870_barrel_markings.jpg


So, according to the above, even the barrel proof markings are an enigma to itself. It has markings from various dates.

The J would indicate that the barrel was made either in;

1940, 1962 (which is what I thought originally), but the star before the 12 gauge would indicate post 1969, and the other options of dating the barrel would include: 1989 or while it didn't mention 2015, would make sense from looking at the chart if it repeats as it has done in the past.

So, perhaps an '89 gun? Would that correlate with what nitesite and bobster observations?

I honestly don't think it's as new as 2015.
 
Put a few different rounds through it this evening.

Shot about 3 or 4 inches high at 25 with slugs and buck, but patterned really well.

Removed the front bead when I got home, (actually tried to unscrew the front and it must have been pressed in and it broke, already drilled it out and re-tapped the hole) and am going to go with a tritium front. The extra height of the tritium style front sights, will put the impacts a little lower on the target. That should have me about as good as I'm going to get it where fixed sights are concerned.

It's a shooter.
 
Sell it to me for a hundred and I'll take it off your hands.

You're welcome.

:)
 
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