I mentioned a Remington Model 11 a while ago, it had come up for sale and had the makings of a cheap gun plus it is based on the John Moses browning Auto-5 so worth a look. After a bit of a false start it was delivered a few days ago and has mostly sat in the Armoury for a reasonable quarantine period. Today it came out for me to take a closer look.
The date code on the barrel is CY so that and the serial confirm it is a 1930 built shotgun that has been converted to Section 2 at some point, as it has a bloody great big crimp around the middle of the magazine tube. It also rather unusually has a top rib and Lyman made Cutts compensator bringing the barrel length to 26" and before you ask, that compensator looks to have been sweated on at some point so it is a fixed length as opposed to an S5 based one way ticket to the Police station.
Stripping it down I noticed it was set to eject heavy loads so I swapped the washer to the base of the spring and it should be good to go. A good clean revealed some dirt but nothing sinister, however turning my attention to the woodwork I noticed the Fore end was a lot darker than the Butt section, a wipe over with acetone took a lot of colour out and revealed an old and ugly crack that has been repaired at some point. I was tempted to bung all the woodwork in the dishwasher at some point to raise the dents and hopefully open the glued sections, they lightly sand and repair, however it looks fairly original right now so probably best to leave it as is.
Back to that barrel, an expanding gauge tells me the bore at the end of the barrel as opposed to compensator is .735" and the final beautifully internally blended end section that unscrews is close to .900" so it is not going to be my go to high bird gun! So what now? Well I need to sort that old repair out at some point, getting out and shooting it would be a bonus as well. I am tempted to knock the crimp out and return it to as it should be, plus I have a spare slot for S1 shotgun and slug, however it would be really nice to just enjoy it for what it is, a SOWS that was 90 years old last month :)
