The new Fieldmaster

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Makes me glad there are a lot of old Wingmasters still out there.
I got to see, handle and critique one yesterday. Reminds me of the old Sportsman model from the mid 80s. Yes, this one has Walnut but it is plain, pores unfilled and an oil finish. Metal, really uninteresting. Yeah, they call it wear resistant but I have 1950s 870s that held up well. Sticker price in the shop, $549 which is way better than the $750 I saw as suggested when it was announced. Me, I’ll stick with my TB, two Wingmasters and two old Expresses, all with more character than this glorified Express.
Signed, a very sad old, in age and experience, Remington fan.
 
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RIP Remington... Rem Arms LLC will always be a shadow of its former self as long as the current leadership is running the company. I own many Remington Outdoor Company firearms (Remington, Marlin, DPMS, Bushmaster ACC etc) and was a big fan of Big Green.

My normal reply to a Rem Arms LLC thread, "Roll up a $100 bill and put it in the chamber of a Rem Arms LLC firearm and I would not give you $80 for it."
 
Cosmetics I am willing to overlook to a degree. Those can be changed easily if you don't like them. I will handle one if I see it and keep an eye on reliability and fit/finish reviews. I am willing to give the Fieldmaster a chance. Just a small one.
 
Virginian said:
Never seen so many supposed Remington fans bitchin' about everything they try to do to save the company the former holding company bankrupted.
Click to expand...

For me personally this is more about the people in charge than the products coming out of the door. The CEO of Remington Outdoor company, Ken D'Arcy, drove the company into its second bankruptcy (after inheriting the company from the first bankruptcy having lost over 80% of the company's debt). Despite being the man in charge of the company, as it entered it second bankruptcy, he some how arranged it so he could buy the 1 million square foot Ilion NY facility and the Storm lake barrel facility in TN and nearly all the equipment in both facilities from the bankruptcy auction for a mere 13 million dollar. He then gets to retain his CEO title with the new Rem Arms LLC. Ruger paid 30 million and only got the Marlin technical data packages and a couple dozen CNC machining centers and no property at all. Speer bough Barnes for over 30 million and got one much smaller facility (~50,000 sq ft). It might all be legal, as it's all in the bankruptcy paper work if you look for it, but it still smell like ****. This same Ken D'Arcy shut down Bushmaster and DPMS in late 2019 in the run up to the 2020 election not because they were not making money (pretty easy to make money selling AR's in an election year) but because they were politically objectionable to (my assumption here) the banks that put him in charge of the company after those banks became owners of Remington after the first bankruptcy. This is not about bitchin' this is about being deliberate with were my money goes and what gun companies I support. I will not give my money to a gun company run by a Fudd. If Rem Arms LLC comes under new management I will reconsider, but not before. You can put Rem Arms LLC in the same general pot as the NRA as far as their leadership and my money goes.
 
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Someone I know just won one of the new Fieldmasters in a raffle and I was impressed. The walnut stock and fit and finish are nice. The receiver finish is a little dull but the barrel is much darker and definitely a better finish than the previous matte black. Not sure what it is because their website didn’t say. I like Mossberg, but the Fieldmaster is a smoother, nicer shotgun than the Mossberg 500. It is much smoother than my 870 tactical that I bought around 10 years ago. I have an old Wingmaster and mechanically it is on par with it - just not aesthetically. However, it is a big improvement over recent products and an overall good looking shotgun. Hopefully they will once again put out some quality products. I know the one I handled was.
 
Haven't seen one in person yet, but like what I hear. A pump is, and always has been a less expensive alternative to other designs. To get the level of finish many people want it will have to sell for 4 figures. If I'm paying $1000+ for a shotgun, I'll choose something other than a pump.

Sounds like the original "Special Purpose" guns made for a while in the 90's. Not to be confused with the "Special Field". The 1st year or 2 those had real walnut stocks with a dull finish and real parkerized metal. They sold at a price that split the difference between the Sportsman which had a cheap hardwood stock but polished metal and the Wingmaster. Probably the perfect working pump shotgun. They were "Special Purpose" because they offered several versions for specific tasks. A 26" for waterfowl, a slug gun with rifle sights, and a 21" barreled turkey hunting special. I had a 26" that I gave to my son-in-law.

Those eventually morphed into the Express which used a cheaper matte finish on the metal and either a cheap hardwood or plastic stock. 95% of shotgun owners can't tell the difference between cheap hardwood and real walnut and they certainly couldn't tell the difference between parkerized metal and a matte finish. Buyers chose the much cheaper Express and Remington dropped the Special Purpose.

I have some issues with Remington, but I can't blame them for cheapening the 870. They offered versions of it that were nicer. Consumers chose not to buy those and buy the cheap versions instead. You don't stay in business building what consumers don't buy.
 
SixteenGauge said:
Your average hunter couldn't care less about the finish of their firearm. Remarms is making a shotgun that they claim has the same mechanical quality as the wingmaster, but without the nice finish. I think it's a good start.
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I disagree! For me the quality of the finish is an indication of the care taken during the entire process. Maybe I am old school here having years of mechanical knowledge under my belt. In my world the care taken to the finish of something is the same as the effort taken the whole time. Yes it costs a little bit more, but you get what you pay for, and you can be proud when it gets handed down to a grandkid someday. Even a simple carpenter's hammer can be junk or good quality. Time will tell the difference eventually.

I recently handled a new Wingmaster 870 at the gun store. Price was $999. Finish wasn't bad to my surprise. I admit being surprised a little by the higher price. I think the days of an 870 Wingmaster for $400 are dead and gone. I see the Express models at Walmart for $399.
 
Virginian said:
Never seen so many supposed Remington fans bitchin' about everything they try to do to save the company the former holding company bankrupted.
Click to expand...

I dont know if I can articulate it properly but the biggest fans of companies, products, musicians, etc, should be the ones most outraged when that thing goes down the toilet. We were the ones who had the most monetary and emotional investment and we got to watch as it all fell apart. Needlessly.

And then at the end this happened:

mcb said:
For me personally this is more about the people in charge than the products coming out of the door. The CEO of Remington Outdoor company, Ken D'Arcy, drove the company into its second bankruptcy (after inheriting the company from the first bankruptcy having lost over 80% of the company's debt). Despite being the man in charge of the company, as it entered it second bankruptcy, he some how arranged it so he could buy the 1 million square foot Ilion NY facility and the Storm lake barrel facility in TN and nearly all the equipment in both facilities from the bankruptcy auction for a mere 13 million dollar. He then gets to retain his CEO title with the new Rem Arms LLC. Ruger paid 30 million and only got the Marlin technical data packages and a couple dozen CNC machining centers and no property at all. Speer bough Barnes for over 30 million and got one much smaller facility (~50,000 sq ft). It might all be legal, as it's all in the bankruptcy paper work if you look for it, but it still smell like ****. This same Ken D'Arcy shut down Bushmaster and DPMS in late 2019 in the run up to the 2020 election not because they were not making money (pretty easy to make money selling AR's in an election year) but because they were politically objectionable to (my assumption here) the banks that put him in charge of the company after those banks became owners of Remington after the first bankruptcy. This is not about bitchin' this is about being deliberate with were my money goes and what gun companies I support. I will not give my money to a gun company run by a Fudd. If Rem Arms LLC comes under new management I will reconsider, but not before. You can put Rem Arms LLC in the same general pot as the NRA as far as their leadership and my money goes.
Click to expand...

I can list a half dozen cartridges Remington designed or brought to mass market and then gave up on them too soon for them to catch on. They developed a proprietary platform for the 30 Rem AR and gave up on it only after a year. All that R&D, tooling, and production was for complete naught. That is just one egregious example.

They wasted their resources, they betrayed the folks who supported them, and ultimately they died the death they deserved.

The old Remington is better off dead and all gun owners are better off without RemArms.

I wish they had named it something completely different with no vestige of the Remington name present.
 
earlthegoat2 said:
I dont know if I can articulate it properly but the biggest fans of companies, products, musicians, etc, should be the ones most outraged when that thing goes down the toilet. We were the ones who had the most monetary and emotional investment and we got to watch as it all fell apart. Needlessly.

And then at the end this happened:



I can list a half dozen cartridges Remington designed or brought to mass market and then gave up on them too soon for them to catch on. They developed a proprietary platform for the 30 Rem AR and gave up on it only after a year. All that R&D, tooling, and production was for complete naught. That is just one egregious example.

They wasted their resources, they betrayed the folks who supported them, and ultimately they died the death they deserved.

The old Remington is better off dead and all gun owners are better off without RemArms.

I wish they had named it something completely different with no vestige of the Remington name present.
Click to expand...

I agree with you for the most part. My father has a 5mm Remington (though ammo is again available) and I have a 30 Remington AR. They were far from a perfect company especial near the end, but Rem Arms LLC's leadership is the same that dove the final nails in the original Remington's coffin. The few things that made Remington good are completely gone (none of Remington's Engineers stayed) and only the Fudd-ish leadership remains. I probably gave the old Remington more slack then they deserved, due to my history with the brand. I have no such history or compunction with Rem Arms LLC and will not give them one inch of slack. I don't carry what they are named, as long as they exist under the current leadership I will repeat my story above.
 
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I have five nice 870's so I, and my son for that matter, will never need to buy a new one. Saying that I would like to see Remington succeed and begin putting out shotguns that will last more than a lifetime again. Some people have really got it in for the new company and want to see it fail and I cannot understand that. Maybe they once owned stock and so lost money in the first or second bankruptcy, I do not know. What I do know is that the brand was first choice for many years for American shotgunners and I would like to see it come back to prominence, if for nothing else for spare parts and accessories for those of us that like our old 870's.
 
I would probably buy one, knowing full well that they aren't what they used to be, which was excellent. But for around $500 I would settle for good. Might be worth a try, I know you can stumble across a wingmaster for about that, sometimes less sometimes more but even still. I like the Fluer de Lis pattern of old coming back, that's a good sign I guess.

The finish on the metal is blech :barf: but for a user, it'll do just fine I'm sure. There are a few things the owner can do to slick things up and smooth it out a bit.

I really wish they would have kept the very rich, high polished blue and the tough as nails bowling pin clear coat they put on the walnut. Those finishes on the older remington products will last a loooooong time....generations. I would bet people would be willing to pay an extra C-note or so if their new products could at least vaguely appear to mirror the old.....

Maybe there is a much smaller minority of people that want things done the old ways than I imagine, but then again like somebody said, most people don't care about the finish on their firearm, duck gun, field gun, etc.... I'm thatway about some guns but if you're trying to mimic the wingmaster in any way, they should step it up at least a lil. The Fleur de Lis is a nice start I guess....
 
DustyGmt said:
I would probably buy one, knowing full well that they aren't what they used to be, which was excellent. But for around $500 I would settle for good. Might be worth a try, I know you can stumble across a wingmaster for about that, sometimes less sometimes more but even still. I like the Fluer de Lis pattern of old coming back, that's a good sign I guess.

The finish on the metal is blech :barf: but for a user, it'll do just fine I'm sure. There are a few things the owner can do to slick things up and smooth it out a bit.

I really wish they would have kept the very rich, high polished blue and the tough as nails bowling pin clear coat they put on the walnut. Those finishes on the older remington products will last a loooooong time....generations. I would bet people would be willing to pay an extra C-note or so if their new products could at least vaguely appear to mirror the old.....

Maybe there is a much smaller minority of people that want things done the old ways than I imagine, but then again like somebody said, most people don't care about the finish on their firearm, duck gun, field gun, etc.... I'm thatway about some guns but if you're trying to mimic the wingmaster in any way, they should step it up at least a lil. The Fleur de Lis is a nice start I guess....
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....Yesterday I was out in the garage going through a old lock box , one of the first things that caught my eye was a old green remmington owners manual with the paper work and reciepts inside for a wingmaster I had bought in September of 85' for $ 276 bucks , both of my wingmasters are pristine , and gorgeous to this day ,My remmingtons are shot on occasion but are pretty much safe queens now , I beat up the new stuff , and savor the old guard these days.....
 
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Beach Bum said:
....Yesterday I was out in the garage going through a old lock box , one of the first things that caught my eye was a old green remmington owners manual with the paper work and reciepts inside for a wingmaster I had bought in September of 85' for $ 276 bucks , both of my wingmasters are pristine , and gorgeous to this day ,My remmingtons are shot on occasion but are pretty much safe queens now , I beat up the new stuff , and savor the old gaurd these days.....
Click to expand...
I paid $200 for my first wingmaster and it was mint, sold it for $200 some years back like an idiot. I thought they were a dime a dozen kind of thing. I had access to alot of stuff cheap back before the price hikes....

I really wish I hadn't done that because when it came time and I decided I needed a wingmaster after all, I had to pay just over 3x that for a used but decent shape Wingmaster TB. It's beautiful and I feel it was worth it, but I still kick myself for that first wingmaster....live and learn. Never again.
 
I'll admit that I do keep looking at new stuff coming out to replace stuff I've had for a long time and did look at one of the new Wingmasters but then I got home and this caught my eye.

Sportsman 48-1-small.png

Maybe soon it will break some part that can't be found anymore but until then I guess I'll just dance with the gal I brung.
 
I hope it sells well. Lets face it, the average member of this forum isn't an average shotgunner, and I am even less conformant. I own nothing but polished walnut and blued steel, save two satin stock sets. Most people these days prefer plastic, and ugly wood is fine because it has become macho to abuse your stuff in many quarters. They want to know how far they can go between cleanings. I clean everything after one round or several hundred. My 1100 Magnum and/or my Wingmaster Magnum have waterfowl hunted from Ontario to Louisiana and from the Chesapeake to Manitoba and many places in between, and both would grade out excellent. Just doesn't take me much effort to take care of my stuff.
 
I do hope the new Remington makes a comeback. With the same mismanagement, it is doubtful.

I have old Remington 870 and 1100, 35-65 years old. 1 Express 870 .410 is 35yo, the LAST Rem shotgun I purchased, compare with a Mossy 500, smoother action, worse finish.

RemArms will have a hard time because of the cheap (Turkish and other) shot the being brought in.
 
I've been waiting to get my hands on one of these for awhile. We finally got one in at work and I'll be honest. I was disappointed. The wood was ok, action was ok, the finish was meh, it didn't fit me very well and it was heavy, really heavy.

I was really looking forward to this gun but there are just too many low cost pumps now and this gun just didn't do it for me. Only thing that impressed me was the checkering. Other than that it was just ok, not worth the added price in an already saturated market.
 
I bought a new fieldmaster and its a really nice shotgun , way nicer then the express models
fit and finish is spot on and the action is smooth
 
SixteenGauge said:
Your average hunter couldn't care less about the finish of their firearm. Remarms is making a shotgun that they claim has the same mechanical quality as the wingmaster, but without the nice finish. I think it's a good start.
Click to expand...

You mean like the 870 Express? Started out acceptable.....
 
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