New 1955 870 Wingmaster

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He also threw in 4 boxes of vintage shotgun ammo!

I've only done one modification so far and that's a Hi-Vis green follower. That makes only two plastic parts on the entire shotgun, including the plastic buttplate ;)
 
You are a lucky guy. 10 rounds? It's brand new! I am envious and in awe. I have been an 870 fan and user since I got my first one in 1969 for skeet. To me there is no finer shotgun made.

Use it and enjoy. It will last another century or more, no matter how many rounds you put through it.

Some guys have all the luck!

Jim
 
Sweet! My store-bought vintage Wingmaster had that same wooden magazine plug when I disassembled the gun for the first time. I don't know when my gun was made, but I can say it wasn't in as nice a shape as your new 870 is.

Have fun with it!
 
Thanks, it's almost too pretty to shoot and I feel bad breaking it in.

Might try and pick up some older 30" fixed barrels in IC and M.

Do you think the older fixed IC/Mod barrels pattern better than the modern Rem-Choke barrels?
 
dak0ta

Now that's a seriously vintage shotgun! Box and manual are like icing on top of the cake! Congrats on a great find and nice job with the photos too!
 
dak0ta said:
Do you think the older fixed IC/Mod barrels pattern better than the modern Rem-Choke barrels?
Click to expand...
I believe that the fixed choke barrels have a more even pattern than all but the best long choke tubes, maybe not every time, but on average. But I also believe that it is much easier to just change a choke tube out over dropping a new barrel onto the gun especially when shooting clays. If you know what you will be mainly shooting for you can have the barrel you want on the gun. At the end of the day it probably doesn't matter except to the hardcore AAA target shooter.
 
If I were to buy an Express 28" VR barrel threaded for RemChokes, would it fit on this receiver? I know some Wingmaster receivers can eject fired 3" hulls despite being marked 2 3/4" only. I have read that remington used the same receivers for Magnum, just moved the ejector back to accommodate for the longer shell length. Is this true?
 
IIRC, you won't be able to eject 3" from that gun. You can put a later RemChoke barrel on it, but please only use 2 3/4" shells in said barrel.
Installing an ejector for 3" Mag. will cure that. Best to let a gunsmith handle that.
 
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Also one thing I've noticed is that the chamber is much tighter on this barrel compared to previous 870s (Wingmaster/Express) and my Benelli Nova. Normally I use fired hulls and cut the crimp off for snap caps. Modern shotguns cycle them fine, but I found only Federal hulls would fit. Remington, Kent, Winchester all had too thick base rims to feed. Just tighter tolerances back then, but was kind of funny thinking I'm getting 'sticky chamber' in these guns, but for the opposite reason, due to tight tolerances.

Another observation is that the ejector actually sticks out much further, like a real, heavy duty piece of spring steel. Modern 870s, the ejector is much more flat against the receiver wall.

And out of curiosity, this model sold for $68.95 USD in 1955. Accounting for inflation that's about $655 USD in 2018. Modern Wingmasters are $800-1000 these days.
 
That is very nice! Like a time capsule. I may have missed it but what gauge is it?
 
dak0ta said:
Pre-Freedom Group (ha ha) Remington 870 Wingmaster AP manufactured in Nov 1955. Picked it up from the original owner who bought it new and shot around 10 rounds through it and back into the safe it went.

I love it.

Have a blessed day,

Leon
Click to expand...
 
That's a great find. There's a 16 gauge in a shop near me that is the same configuration as your gun. Of course it has no box or papers and has been used but not abused. If it had been 12 it would have come home with me.
 
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