[Oldnamvet]

A friend of mine has just had to replace his 1187 piston, for the 3rd time in about 6 years. He shoots a lot of skeet but uses almost exclusively the remington 1 oz loads. So far remington has sent the parts for free but he wonders what he is doing wrong (if anything) to crack so many of them. Any ideas?

[sm]

Few questions first?
-Any modifications to this gun?
-Reg field , Target or Police Model?
-High round counts?

From MY experiences and observations, going back to when this gun first come out, it is a design problem, and high round counts caused fits even back in the day.

Some folks just have to mess with a gun, like ports and shorten barrels too much and therefore mess up Dwell and other things that cause fits with shotguns.

Police guns, most anyway, had a bit more attention to detail and fitting.

If this gun is bone stock, not been meddled with, is maintained...
My guess-
Remington lowered the quality of the metallurgy again.

I have not messed with a 1187 in some time.
Being honest , never believed in or trusted that gun, always felt and still feel the OLD 1100s were/are a better design.
Currently cussing Rem, and among things the "new" one pc design of the 1100 gas system.

Cuss, cuss, cuss, cuss...

I betcha if a OLD set up was found, it would be that obvious in the changes made over the years and would work better...if he got one that works from the start that is.

Yes, I am biased. I was there and saw too much back when this gun was introduced.

[Striker]

My experience has been the opposite.

I currently have three 11-87s: One is my primary gas skeet gun, one is my wife's trap gun, and the third is/was a backup & travel gun. The first two are early examples, while the back-up is a newer vintage.

A quick glance at my gun logs show that the skeet and trap guns both have substantial round counts (in excess of 20K each since I aquired them used), and neither have had any problems with pistons. The back up gun only has about 2K rounds thru it, but it has never given me any problems to date. I do clean these guns paying close attention to the gas regulating parts and mag tube after each use and that may impact on their reliability.....or it could be that I've just been lucky.

My observations, and as always YMMV.

[Oldnamvet]

Gun is bone stock field grade. Nothing done to it other than shoot it a lot with 2.75" shells. I wondered if there was something in the way it is installed, placement of any other parts, o-rings, springs, whatever, that would allow it to function normally yet cause premature failure of the piston. I don't know since I have never taken one apart.