S&W 3000 Pump Action Police Shotgun.

They are pretty cool guns. As i understand, S&W built them as a competitor to the Rem 870. My uncle had one with a longer barrel for hunting when I was a kid.

How do they compare to the 916 series that they replaced? I've always loved the look and feel of those.

Ooh color me intrigued then! I'm an 870 guy through and through and swear at my 500 regularly.

I'd love to at a S&W shotgun to the collection soon. The 3000 might be the way to go.

I'm not certain but I think the Model 3000 shotguns were made by Howa in Japan.

Dontkillbill said:

Yes sir you are correct. The Mossburg 3000s are the same gun by the way.

Candyman... Take one out for test drive if you get a chance.

Click to expand...

I surely will! Do they have the S&W logo on the side?

Candyman87

Still kick myself for not picking up a S&W Model 1000 Super Skeet at a gun show a few years back. It was a semi-auto 12 gauge with a lot of extra features and also came with an extra 28" field barrel. Like new in the box, very nicely built and handled beautifully; I could have had it for around $250-$275. Didn't know enough about it so I went home and did some homework and found it to be a very good shotgun for the money. Went back the next day and of course it was gone.

The Smith Model 3000 never went over the way S&W had hoped, but it is a very well-made pump shotgun. There are some who argue that the Model 3000 is actually superior for police/self-defense use over the Remington Model 870 for the reason that it is not subject to a certain type of jam that the Model 870 is potentially vulnerable to.

Candyman- my former boss is a S&W collector. We were talking S&W one day and he told me the 916 series shotguns were known to catastrophically fail (blow up) for no apparent reason.

I've never seen one blow up - but I owned one in the 70s. They were pretty awful shotguns. I bought it thinking that if S&W made it - it would be good. Truth is S&W just bought the old Noble design and produced it as cheaply as possible. I've been using nothing 870s ever since.

I bought a a 916 back in the late 70's when I needed something to replace the unreliable department issued shotgun that was available to me at the time. Price was a major consideration. As noted, the 916 is not a quality piece, but it did work the one time I needed it to.

I later acquired a 3000, which I used for demonstrations through twenty plus years of police basic firearms training. It's had thousands of rounds through it, mostly slugs and buckshot, and has never given me a single problem. I will never sell it.

I purchased a S&W 3000 new many years ago, never regretted it.
Fabulous trigger out of the box. I replaced the hollow plastic tubular magazine follower with the much-better solid plastic follower.

Biggest mark against the 3000 today is poor availability of spare parts.
(I'm a big fan of available spares).

Primary issue I had was that the magazine tube extension support clamp for the "Police" version can work loose under recoil and get lost. I fixed that my fabricating a recoil stop collar out of aluminum and gluing to the magazine tube extension. The clamp is important in that it's possible to break the magazine tube extension by thumping it against a surface without the extra support, which completely hangs up the magazine tube spring function. Been there, did that, didn't enjoy the experience.

http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=308987&highlight=s%26amp%3BW+3000+clamp

Yup. I see a lot of guys running extended mag tubes with no clamp and they are firmly convinced they don't "need" one. Nope, you really do need a clamp. Bend or break a mag tube and you'll find out why. (expensive repair)

The M3000s I have experience with were very reliable.

Don't get me going on the 916..ptui!

Candyman- my former boss is a S&W collector. We were talking S&W one day and he told me the 916 series shotguns were known to catastrophically fail (blow up) for no apparent reason.

Click to expand...

http://firearmsid.com/recalls/FA_Recalls 5.htm

SMITH & WESSON
MODEL 916-T SHOTG

RECALL: Smith & Wesson said last week it was recalling all barrels for a 12-gauge, interchangeable barrel shotgun because they are defective and potentially hazardous.

"Under certain conditions the barrels rupture, but no one has been injured. None of the barrels exploded," said company spokesman William Clede.

"We learned about the problem from reports in the field," he said.

Owners of the 916T Model, which has been manufactured for several years, should not fire the takedown type shotgun with its existing barrels, he said. Barrels should be removed from guns and shipped to the factory in Springfield for replacement.

The company, a major national gun manufacturer, declined to say immediately how many guns were covered by the recall order.

The company will replace barrels for its 916T Model with new barrels designed not to rupture, Clede said. The recall does not cover the Model 916 shotgun, which has a fixed barrel.

The newly designed replacement barrels for the 916T will be identified by the letter "O" on the top of the barrel near the breech end, Clede said.

Contact:

F.J. Longtin
Service Manager
Smith & Wesson
2100 Roosevelt Avenue
Springfield, MA 01101

Source:

American Rifleman, September 1979; page 74
American Rifleman, February 1979; page 85
Crime Control Digest, November 20, 1978; page 6

The S&W 916 is a development of the old Nobel pump. Heck, it may BE the Nobel with no real development. Not a lot of gun.

Mossberg 500, Remington 870, Ithaca 37, S&W 3000 are better pump shotguns than the S&W 916. S&W 916 was the Noble Model 66, bought out by S&W and slightly re-engineered so S&W could test the shotgun market w/o a big investment. Noble made a lot of very cheap, simple guns mostly .22 rifles and shotguns for people with little money: Noble guns have little resale value (price of routine gunsmith repair usually exceeds the value of a Noble gun in working order). I have an S&W 916 I bought Christmas 1977 for $80 at Montgomery Ward. Mine is the original 916A with the barrel threaded to the receiver, not the later 916T takedown with removable barrel that had ruptured barrel problems. Since 1977 I have shot a lot of cans at a rock quarry pond, some clay pigeons, using slugs, buckshot, some 3" magnum, mostly 2 3/4". The 916 got me started reloading 12ga until Walmart started running specials on 100 round boxes of 12ga quail and skeet loads. It is what it is: a heavy, simple, rough shotgun. All this bad mouthing makes me want to take it out to the range and see if it as bad as everyone is telling me it is. I recall counting on it for over a decade for HD.

Now, if I had started with a S&W 3000 it is probable my 916 would not be retired to the back of the closet. So I congratulate the OP for his good taste and good luck.

I don't think calling a spade a spade is "bad mouthing." I have an old 916A riot gun and it's pretty funky and clunky by any standard, but especially by the standards of the day in which it was produced. Doesn't mean it won't work, it's just pretty much bottom of the barrel design and execution from a company who was/is considered top tier in many of their other endeavors. I get that it was a Noble design they bought and had built by somebody else, but still...no excuse.

The 3000 model on the other hand, a great gun of which I am proud to say I own one.

Also, in you list of "better than" you forgot the High Standards, the Winchesters, the Marlins and even the old Savage-Stevens of the era, generally speaking.

As said the Model 916 was an almost carbon copy of the Nobel (60 ?). It was not a well made shotgun and many of them sit in the junk pile today.

The Howa made 3000 on the other hand was well made and comparible to the Remington 870 in design and in quality.

I had a Model 3000 S&W back in the 1980's. It was black parkerized with an extended magazine tube and a side folding butt stock (all factory). They seem to be pretty scarce today. I sold mine as I had a hard time not beating myself up with that side folding stock. Not all that pleasant to shoot.

My new purchased Howa-mfgr S&W 3000 Police model also came with a Choate side folder and a parkerized finish. Underlying metal was pretty nice for a parkerized finish job.
Very nice factory iron rifle sights on the 20 inch barrel.

As my infatuation with folding stocks faded, I purchase a Choate synthetic fixed stock for it. I still have the Choate side folder option for it. I may yet sell it to someone who wants it more than I do

Used it (in fixed-stock configuration) for Cdn IPSC 3-gun in the past.

Anyone who owns a 916 that works is lucky. Mine was crap. After three trips to a smith in two years it was replaced with a Mossberg 500 that's given 32 years of trouble free service.

The M3000 is a fine shotgun. Too bad parts are hard to come by but they seldom break down.

.
I too have a S&W Model 3000, but not a Police model although it now wears an 18.0" blued POL. CYL. bead-sight barrel. It was my first shotgun purchase years ago, very lightly used. It is a gorgeous shotgun.

At the time of purchase I did a little checking around and discovered the claim the 3000 was a clone of the 870 for S&W to penetrate the law enforcement long gun market. In the '70s as we all know S&W wheelguns were the only thing in their holsters and the 870 rode in the rack. Although it is a very nicely made gun it offered nothing over the 870 and based on the 916 fiasco LE armorers were reluctant to give it a go. It faded away and then as the story goes the design was bought by Mossberg.

Mine was a bird gun judging from it's original 30" fixed-full-choke vent rib barrel, the deep blueing and the fine stock and forend. I like shorter longarms, so unless I take it out to bust clays it wears this 18" barrel. I found the barrel through Corson's Barrels in Arizona. I looked on Don Corson's webpage for a few years before this short barrel popped up. Haven't seen one since, but there must some out there, still.

I hope you don't mind if I post a couple of images. The S&W Model 3000 club should stick together.