What year did Remington shotgun quality collapse?

[gato naranja]

Despite being designed to be cheap (er) to make, it should still be remembered that the 870 was sort of a wunderkind when it showed up. Yes, it may have been another step in the history of the the sporting "punch press gun," but as a complete package it sure impressed a lot of people at the time... maybe not the owners and users of high-grade shotguns, but for the man of middling means, it was the right gun at the right time. It took various changes of management and bean-counters years to cut corners in the small details and give the thing a black eye.

ALL the big names screwed the QC pooch for miniscule savings, some of them before the second round of the World Wars, others after it. The various post-DuPont suits at Remington just seemed particularly clueless about how to save/spend money. Sponsoring NASCAR teams and licensing the brand for use on cheap POP merchandise didn't work out so well.

[Borderland]

I really wanted a model 12 when I bought my 870 in 1970. By then they had been gone from production for awhile. I think the 870's lower cost of production may have contributed to the model 12's demise. My dad was a bird hunter and said a model 12 is the shotgun you want, if you can afford one. He hunted with a model 97, which I still have.


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[gato naranja]

I really wanted a model 12 when I bought my 870 in 1970. By then they had been gone from production for awhile. I think the 870's lower cost of production may have contributed to the model 12's demise. My dad was a bird hunter and said a model 12 is the shotgun you want, if you can afford one. He hunted with a model 97, which I still have.

The 870 dressed in "Wingmaster" clothes was the pump-gun yardstick of measure among the generation right ahead of me, but yeah, the 12 was the gun that their fathers' generation swore by. I suppose there may have been small numbers of the Model 25 in that group, but if so, I don't really remember them. The 97s were definitely not as common by then, many having worn major components down to where they were retired or turned into liquid assets.

(Speaking of the 25, I wonder if some of the shooting cognoscenti of the time lamented that it was Winchester's shotgun "quality collapse"?)

[LHS]

The 870 dressed in "Wingmaster" clothes was the pump-gun yardstick of measure among the generation right ahead of me, but yeah, the 12 was the gun that their fathers' generation swore by. I suppose there may have been small numbers of the Model 25 in that group, but if so, I don't really remember them. The 97s were definitely not as common by then, many having worn major components down to where they were retired or turned into liquid assets.

(Speaking of the 25, I wonder if some of the shooting cognoscenti of the time lamented that it was Winchester's shotgun "quality collapse"?)

My Grandpap still maintains that Winchester died the day they stopped making the Model 12.

[Tabasco]

I really wanted a model 12 when I bought my 870 in 1970. By then they had been gone from production for awhile. I think the 870's lower cost of production may have contributed to the model 12's demise. My dad was a bird hunter and said a model 12 is the shotgun you want, if you can afford one. He hunted with a model 97, which I still have.


resize photo for facebook online

This is what Santa brought me in 1980, purchased at K-Mart. My first paying job was at the Miramar Gun Club (trap and skeet) where I could shoot for free (had to buy ammo). Bought a 26" bbl. with a Poly-Choke for skeet.