Looking at a Remington model 11 for sale locally

I've always been interested in Auto 5's and the Remington and Savage clones. A Remington 11 showed up at the local shop and I was checking it out today, I've been doing some research online but thought I'd swing by here and see if there were any Remington 11 gurus.

This Model 11 is in decent shape, the receiver is the non-engraved type, the bluing is actually pretty nice and doesn't look like it's been redone but if it has ever been redone then it certainly wasn't recently. The wood is is good looking shape and free of cracks. The barrel has been cut to about 22 inches and has a Cutts compensator on it with a spreader choke installed. It has this style of safety..



I partially took it down while I was checking it out and everything looked dry and a little dirty but otherwise pretty good except that on the side of the barrel opposite of the extractor there was a line of brazing. I looked around online for pictures of model 11 barrels but couldn't find any pictures of one brazed in that spot which leads me to believe it was once broken, though I couldn't see any evidence of a crack anywhere around the brazing or on the opposite side of it by the extractor.

The brazing was here


I checked the date code on the barrel and if I checked it right then it's from April of 1941 though the number by the ring on the barrel isn't the same as the number on the receiver (though I'm not sure they're supposed to match). Barrel number is 440xxx and receiver number is 67xxx, The shop is asking $300 (price tag says $400).

I'm not a huge shotgun guy, the range I go to is indoors, pretty short, and they only allow slugs so I wouldn't really be shooting it there much, but occasionally I'd like to take it to the skeet range 2 towns over or if the situation presents it's self perhaps hunting but that's not my main concern, apart from that it would just be for home defense though really I have plenty of other stuff for that. Most shotgun designs don't do much for me but I love the old humpback design so this Remington 11 seems like a good fit but I figured I would run it by the experts, anything I should know or find out about this one?

I wish I'd had my phone with me when I was checking it out or I would have taken a picture of it. The brazing is a straight bead about an inch and a half long, about a quarter of an inch wide. It doesn't extend all the way to the rear so it doesn't look like it was a crack, and I couldn't see any evidence of a crack on the other side by the extractor, the brazing didn't have any rub marks on it so it doesn't appear to contact anything. I have no idea why it's there, I thought perhaps it was factory as I've seen stranger things on guns of that era but either way I think I might pass on it unless they come way down on the price.

This one has no engraving, I just used that picture to show the style of safety. I'm going to go back by today and see if I can take a picture of the brazing and work on the price a little.

Also I was looking through the manual and I see one of the friction ring settings is for guns with the Cutts compensator, I get that the extra weight of the Cutts requires the extra light spring setup but do they expect you to leave it in the Cutts setting for both heavy and light loads?

Is the spreader choke on the Cutts just open cylinder diameter? The range I go to only allows slugs.

I could be wrong on the barrel length, I'm notoriously bad at eyeball measuring things, it's certainly cut down but it's not an 18.5" riot gun or anything. I have plenty of better choices for HD but it's short enough I would be comfortable with it. I'll bring a tape measure with me when I swing back by the shop.

I went back by the shop and took some pictures of the brazed part, there doesn't appear to have been any damage that I can see, it looks more like they filled that channel with braze for fitting or something , it does have light marking on it from the barrel recoiling, it looked like it was possibly sliding against the "cartridge stop" if I'm reading the parts list correctly (it's the vertical part sticking through the side of the receiver on the left side) though I don't know why. I also measured the barrel, it's cut to 20" and has the Cutts compensator for an OAL of 25"

I've looked at a lot of barrels online and it seems some Remington 11 barrels have a groove machined through the spot where the brazing is

like this


And some where the brazed area is completely filled

like this


It looks like the previous owner at some point had this barrel modified to look like the second one, though I'm not sure why. What is the purpose of that groove and why would someone modify it to be like the second picture?

Is it possible that the previous owner was having feeding problems because the newer 1941 barrel wasn't pushing the shell stop out of the way enough? So by adding more material to the bump on the bolt it now can push the shell stop open more allowing the shell to feed?

Knowing what I now know $300 isn't even an option, that's just the price the guy at the shop automatically went to, no haggling has taken place. It's just that I've been looking for a Auto 5/Rem 11/Savage 720 project for years now and the only ones I ever see in the shop are pristine Auto 5's with pristine Auto 5 prices. This is the first non $800 Browning I've come across locally with decent bluing and non cracked up wood so I figured it was worth checking out.

Buying online is nice but then you have to pay shipping and transfer and you don't get to check the gun out in person first which I feel is a must on a 100 year old gun. I'm looking for a project not a white glove collector piece so mixed numbers doesn't really bother me. If this shop wants to drop the price to $175-200 I might think about it but otherwise I guess I'll just keep looking.