Remington 870

The Remington Model 870 is a popular pump action shotgun made in the United States. The Remington 870 is widely used by civilians for hunting, target shooting, and self defense and by law enforcement as a defensive weapon.

By: marvin Posted: May 14, 2007

Background

The Remington Model 870 was the fourth major innovative design in a series of Remington pump action shotguns. John Pedersen designed the original fragile Model 10 (and later he improved the Model 10 creating the Model 29). Working closely with John Browning, Pedersen also assisted in the design of the Model 17 which was much later adopted by Ithaca as the famous Ithaca 37 and also served as the baseline design for the Remington 31. The Remington Model 31 was consistently considered to be an excellent shotgun, but struggled for overall sales in the shadow of the popular Winchester Model 12. Remington sought to correct the slow sales by introducing in 1950 a streamlined, modern, rugged, relatively inexpensive and reliable, the Remington 870 Wingmaster.
Sales of the 870 have been consistently steady. The sales reached 2 million guns sold by 1973 (This was significant and over ten times the number of Model 31 shotguns the 870 replaced). By 1996, aided by the basic "Express" model, sales of the shotgun topped seven million guns. The Remington 870 holds the record for best selling pump action shotgun in United States history.

Overall Design

The Remington 870 features a side ejecting, bottom-loading, receiver, dual action bars, tubular magazine under the barrel, internal hammer, and a bolt which conveniently locks into an extension within the barrel. The action, trigger system, receiver, slide release catch and safety catch of the Remington 870 shotgun are nearly identical to those used on the Remington Model 7600 series pump-action carbines and centrefire rifles. 20 gauge stocks will additionally interchange. Numerous parts of the 870 will interchange with the newer semi-automatic Remington model 1100 and 11-87. The Mossberg 500 is the main competitor of the Remington 870.

Different Versions

There are over hundreds of variations of the Remington Model 870. From the initial and original fifteen models offered, Remington currently manufactures and produces dozens of models for military, law enforcement and civilian sales. 870 of the different variants can be grouped into:

* Wingmaster shotguns feature polished glossy and bluey wood finishes.
* Express Remington models feature satin wood and bead blasted finish or synthetic furniture.
* Marine guns which have nickel finishes and synthetic stocks.
* Police shotguns feature parkeerized or blued finish and synthetic or satin wood stocks.

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