Rem 11-87 3 1/2 Mag Experience

[rene65]

My local store has just come down with a special on 11-87 3 1/2 camo. My hunting buddy bought one last year and this year it was jamming up BUT he FORGOT that it needs cleaning once in a while.What has been your personal experience with this shotgun under normal care. ( I clean my guns ).

[skeet]

Surprisingly as an 1100 and 11-87 owner(15) this is the one 11-87 I would not own. Every one I know of has had an issue with it. I am certain some have no issues. Have had 4 to work on this fall. One was ruined and the others were repairable. To be very honest two were broken by the ammo they were shooting. The Kent Fasteel seems to be having a bit of a problem this year. That was the ammo the two broken guns were shooting when they messed up. One was repairable...the other the bbl was bulged in 4 places and the bolt was ruined. Seems as though Remington is having a bit of trouble with the gun. The 870 Supermag however is ok....and in my opinion a better gun than the Benelli Pump. Of course I don't like plastic receivers. Although overpriced the Benelli SBE II is a good shooting gun. Have one that I got a great buy on. Works well. Also have a Beretta Extrema in 3 1/2 in. It also works well. The extrema is also overpriced but one of them has to go. The Extrema is camouflaged and the Benelli is black....but color doesn't make any difference to me. One of my 11-87 guns is black and one camo too. My daughter and grandson are using them right now...shooting geese. Remington is supposed to be working on another semi auto to try to compete with the B Guns. If you have to have a remington...wait for the new one..probably next year if Remington stays the course.

[rene65]

Thanks Skeet for the info, I had doubts about that gun .I own a 870 mag and it had to be serviced as soon as i got it, would not work with the 3 1/2, was very hard to cycle and would jam closed or would not close. That is why I have my doubpt on remington.I am also looking at the Browning A gold and the Winchester X2 as other options, both in 3 1/2.The BEnelli and Beretta are out of my budget range for now.I dont really care for the looks of a firearm but it has to be reliable and not break my shoulder every time i use it ( those 3 1/2 shells pack a wallup ). Do these guns seem better than the 11-87 ?

[fabsroman]

Oh boy, you should know that Skeet and I both detest Browning, and the Winchester X2 is the same gun without the bells and whistles.

Now, that doesn't mean that a lot of people don't like those guns. I think MT Pockets bought the Winchester and he really likes it. The Benelli SBE II is supposed to dampen the recoil a significant amount, but I have yet to shoot it (i.e., cannot justify buying one when I have a SBE I).

At the end of the day, I am the type of guy that will wait until I can afford to buy the best, instead of settling for second best. If you cannot afford the Benelli this year, how about next season? Is there a specific reason why you need a new shotgun this season, which is about half over anyway?

[rene65]

I was not planning to buy this winter, but the special I saw advertised for the 11-87 was pulling me towards the store like a strange magnet.If the 11-87 and the X2 are the same ( are the quality the same ? ), is the problem design or quality of production. and material used. I have owned 2 Brownings, an Auto-5 12guage in my younger days and an auto-22, both sensitive to weather and not ejecting all the time.I am scared that the a-gold will be the same. The other gun that seems interesting is the beretta extrema but its double the price ( but probably worth it )

[fabsroman]

The Browning Gold and Winchester X2 are practically the same gun, not the Remington and the Winchester.

Skeet likes to say that the Berettas and Brownings are over priced, but I guess you can say the same thing about Ferraris. The Ferrari gets you from A to B just like a Taurus would, and they might just last the same length of miles, so why is the Ferrari that much more expensive and why are people willing to pay for them. The simple law of supply and demand would cut Beretta and Benelli's price down if they weren't worth it. However, there reputation must have something to do with it. Same goes for the Remington. Why is that gun so cheap? Because it isn't worth as much as a Benelli or Beretta (i.e., very few hunters are out there swearing by their 11-87).

My SBE has lasted me 8 seasons now, and I even use it for deer hunting. I already feel as though I got my money's worth out of the gun.

[skeet]

Actually Fab's analogy wasn't very good. A better analogy would be... When you need a lawyer would you try to find a new attorney who deals in criminal law take a case concerning business law...or would you hire Fabs who deals in business law quite a bit. Actually the majority of hunters out there are using the 870 and 1100-11-87 guns. In the blind today there were 8 of us...4 had 11-87's 1 had an 870...1 had a Mossberg 835 and 2 had SBE Benelli's. The B guns sell pretty well but consider that there are more than 6 MILLION 870's out there and almost 3 MILLION 1100-11-87's. One of the reasons for those numbers is they have been around longer...but the main one is that the 870 and 11-87 guns are fairly reliable and are much cheaper to buy.. BTW the only problem with any of the guns today was with one of the Benelli's. (failure to feed) So they all mess up at one time or another. BTW we shot 16 geese in this order 2 tolled...both stayed. one tolled and stayed...5 tolled 5 stayed one tolled and stayed 4 tolled and stayed 2 came and stayed and one swung the edge and stayed anyway. There was a total of 24 shots fired..including crippled shells. So the guns all seemed to work ok. People actually buy the guns they hear the most of and what they can afford. The B guns are good ones of course..but so are most of the others.....even the (gag) Brownings(gag) I consider a Browning a G gun..hehehehe All are overpriced..and I shoot a Krieghoff..duh!!

[M.T. Pockets]

I think it boils down to personal preference, sort of like what kind of beer is your favorite, and what price range are you in.

I've seen every shotgun mentioned above, and several others, fail to feed at one time or another. It's not always the gun's fault.

Rather than always blaming the shotgun, the person in charge of cleaning & maintaining it has to assume some responsibility. Along with that, I think the type of ammunition is also a factor. I think the cheaper, lower end ammunition may not be as reliable through an autoloader. Another factor is the condition of the hull, if you're shooting old shells that have been wet and have some rust on the hulls, they're not going to cycle as reliably as clean new hulls. Just some personal observations.

[fabsroman]

There is a lot of factors that influence hang ups. The cleanliness of the auto, how cold the weather is, how old the shell is, and the list goes on and on.

I guess one of the mail reasons I am so happy with my Benelli SBE and Beretta o/u's is that they are extremely easy to clean. The SBE's receiver is aluminum so I don't have to worry about rust on it, just the possibility that it might wear out from a lot of use (i.e., shell bases hitting the receiver as they cycle). The Beretta 391's are a little harder to clean than the Benelli SBE, but they are still a lot easier to clean than the Browning Citori I have. I don't shoot the Citori just because I do not want to clean it. Oh yeah, that goes for the Browning Auto 5 too. I like to keep my guns clean, but I also like the effort to be as minimal as possible. Recently, I just have not had the time to keep them as clean as I usually like, but sometimes life just does that to people.

So far, I have been goose hunting a single day this year and killed exactly one goose. I am looking at getting out sometime this week, but it probably will not be until later in the week. I'll give you a report about how the SBE works. By the way, I don't think my dad's Beretta 686 Onyx o/u has ever jammed up in its 10 years of use.