Help Deciding

[Glocklover72]

I’m in the market to purchase my son a Remington 870. I want to get him a Wingmaster. Our the new production shotguns good as an older version. I really like the American Classic model that Remington offers. What are your thoughts on the American Classic, the standard Wingmaster or an older model?

[jokester945]

Purpose? Hunting, collecting, home defense?


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[Glocklover72]

Hunting plus something he can pass down to his kind ds

[Glocklover72]

Pass down to his kids

[Synchronizor]

Wingmasters are still good guns. Though Expresses match them in raw function, brand-new Wingmasters are nicer out of the box due to the higher-end finishing. They're much prettier, as well. All 870s run better with some miles on them, but with a new gun, you're at a more known starting point. No-one had it before you to futz with the trigger, mess something up trying to make it "tacti-cool", beat it up with sketchy reloads or thousands or rounds of steel shot, bend the shell latches putting the gun back together wrong, etc. You're also covered under Remington's warranty as the original purchaser, in case there is some defect with the gun. You'll hear mixed reports about Remington's warranty service, but they've always taken care of me real well in the past.

Older 870s are good guns as well, and you can find some nice deals going that route, but shopping used Wingmasters can be a lot to wade through. It's easy to end up with something that'll only take 2 3/4" shells, or something that's missing a lot of the nice design improvements that newer ones have, or just something that's been beat on and needs work. It's extremely rare for an 870 to be so far gone as to be un-salvageable, they're really hard guns to kill, but you may end up with more of a project than you were intending.

I would say if you're shopping used 870s and find what looks like a good deal, but you're not real familiar with 870s, don't buy at first sight. Write down the serial number, check the choke and other barrel markings, maybe take some pictures if you can, then do some homework to see if it's really a good deal. We'll be able to answer questions and help you decipher markings, so you better know what you're getting into.

[Synchronizor]

The biggie is the flex-tab update; changes to the breech bolt, slide assembly, and carrier that prevent a certain type of miss-feed from locking up the action. Nice to have on any 870, but I consider it really important for a defensive or fighting gun. That came along in the mid-1980s. Alongside the flex-tab change came improvements to the action bars, with more gradual camming surfaces for a smother-riding action, and cut-outs that better supported the new slide-assembly and kept the action bars from deflecting as much from the spring force of the shell latches.

Also in the mid-80s was the introduction of Rem Chokes. Interchangeable choke tubes are super nice to have on hunting or sporting guns, especially if you want to use harder non-toxic shot.

There have also been other, more minor refinements to the 870 over the years, like plastic magazine followers that are lighter, high-visibility for increased safety, and won't damage the stop shoulder in the receiver; heavier-duty shell latches that stand up better and have extra staking recesses; improved firing pins & firing pin retractor springs that make breakages less likely; the retaining pin to keep the locking block in the bolt when the gun is disassembled; etc. I don't know the exact years for all of these right off the top of my head.

Remarkably though, parts interchangeability with the 870 has hardly been affected by these changes; you could take an old 1950s 2.75"-only model and convert it to a 3" Magnum with the flex tab, screw-in chokes, and all the other improvements without much major surgery. Threading a fixed-choke barrel for screw-in chokes takes some machining equipment & know how, but if you don't want to tackle that yourself or pay someone else to do so, you can always buy a newer barrel and drop it onto any standard 870 of the same gauge in under a minute without any special tools. But parts cost money, and time is worth money, so you have to consider whether you're looking for a project or not.