[BUGS]

Attached are pics of my shotgun that I am in the process of cleaning up. The serial # is in the 50,000 range and its in pretty good shape except for a cracked piece out of the stock in the grip area. A few questions:
- how can I find out date of gun?
- how can I tell what barrel choke it is?( stamped A 1 under barrel)
- being very old, is it safe to use current ammo.
- any precautions to take after cleaning it up well?

Thanks for any feedback :-) Dave

[Chawbaccer]

Remington went with a cross bolt safety in 1928. After 1921 remington started using a barrel code for the date, of course the barrel could of been swapped out. Here (http://www.remingtonsociety.com/rsa/questions/barrelcodes) is the link to the Remington Society with the barrel dates.
Your gun is built like a brick s---house, and unless it has been abused it will run on modern ammo, I have one that I hunt with regularly. Learn how to set up your friction rings and you will have lots of fun with that gun. If you have any doubts about it's safety have your smith check it out.
as for the choke, mine says full on the left side of the barrel at the breech end

[BUGS]

Chawbaccer : Thanks for the information. I looked more carefully and saw the engraving of FULL on my barrel. Mine must have been made prior to 1921 since it only says A 1 on the barrel and the safety is in front of the trigger and I guess not a crossbolt version. I'll do some research on the setting of the rings as you spoke of. Thanks again, Dave

[BUGS]

I looked in to the friction ring issue and am now a little confused. Attached is a pic of how I found mine. It appears that I have the bronze friction piece in place but I don't see the friction ring?? According to the manual, if heavy loads are used, the friction ring would be placed next to the bronze piece. For light loads, it would be placed at the other end of the recoil spring(it's not there). Should I not shoot my shotgun until a friction ring is installed or is there a diffrence between the Auto-5 and Remingtons model 11 set-up. Thanks.

[Chawbaccer]

What you have is the friction piece, I can't tell from your picture, but there is supposed to be a spring that slips over that. Your friction ring is missing, they are a wear piece and Numrich (http://www.e-gunparts.com/products.asp?chrMasterModel=0860z11&MC=) carries them for a few dollars. I wouldn't shoot your gun until that piece is replaced as you risk damaging your gun when the barrel recoils. Most of us set ours up for heavy loads and don't mess around with the rings unless there is a loading-ejection problem.