Fred Fuller
Moderator Emeritus
It followed me home, honest it did. I had nothing to do with it, didn't feed it any beef jerky or peppermints. It just followed me home.
My new Cinderella gun is a 30-year old working class 870 Wingmaster Magnum, courtesy of one of my usual FFL dealer haunts. I say working class because it had been used hard, put up wet and as near as I can tell, has never seen a fieldstrip level cleaning in all its born days until now. And the former owner scrawled his name and social security number in the left side of the receiver with an electric engraver (never mind the gun has a perfectly legible serial number prominently displayed). But I brought her home anyway, 'cause the price was right. How right? $150.
I keep telling people to look, and they will discover; seek and they will find, no need to buy Chicom copies or lesser guns when the real thing is out there for about the same or even less money. Friend Dave says goodnaturedly that maybe we should shut up telling people to go look for Cinderella 870s, or else they will all get gone and then there won't be any left when one of us needs one. Well, the supply might get thinned out a bit, but I kinda sorta doubt either one of us will ever be in a position to actually genuinely NEED another 870. I am not naming any numbers in either case, but Dave has said in passing here how many he has, and I don't actually really know how many I have but it's more than Dave, so that obviously means even by my own definition that I have enough.
Doesn't mean I didn't buy this one, and also a stripped receiver from another THR member (hey, that price was right too, and especially so since I can build that stripped receiver back up into a shootable gun out of the parts box without spending another copper-plated zinc penny on it) this week though. Don't think I was ever before profligate enough to buy TWO 870s in one week, so this is a sort of record for me.
Anyway, back to that bicentennial thing. Had to call Remington this AM to get the date of manufacture from the serial number. The gun didn't have its original barrel, somewhere in its checkered past that had gotten swapped off and a 28" VR MOD-choked 2 3/4" chamber barrel installed. So no hope of checking a barrel date code for a clue as to its birthday. I called over to Big Green on their toll free line, where after a few minutes on hold listening to Remington commercials (as if I needed to) a nice young lady informed me that Remington 870 Serial Number T426XXXM had been manufactured in the Year of Our Lord 1976.
Which for all you young sprouts who had not been born by then was the year of the much vaunted American Bicentennial, two hundred years since that momentous day in 1776 when The US of A came into being. Some manufacturers prominently marked their products that came off the line that year with special markings, including some firearms companies. What can you say, it was the 1970s and all sorts of things were going on.
Far as I know Remington did not get caught up in the red white and blue fervor that marked that particular year. There is nothing rollmarked on this receiver to indicate its date of birth has any more significance than that of any other 870. But knowing that this is a 1976 gun gives it a bit of extra panache for me. It guarantees I won't ever have any trouble remembering how old this gun is. It is pretty apparent from the wear and the superficial rust and the accumulated gunk that it had been around for a while, but it is often hard to tell how old a used gun really is just from surface appearance.
That matters with some guns. The nice thing about 870s is that unless a gun has some patently obvious functional difficulties, no matter what it looks like on the outside it will almost certainly run just fine. This is one book that you cannot read by the cover, the 870 design is so robust that it takes vast levels of abuse and wear to make one nonfunctional in a major way. Little things can be fixed easily. Almost always it is only little things that go wrong with old 870s, unless the shooter really messes up and does something like shooting with a plugged barrel. Only really bad 870 problem I ever saw was the result of a young man shooting a reload that had been through the wash and following it up quickly with another shot at a fleeting dove. Even though the first shot 'didn't sound right' he quickly pumped and shot again, and blew up the barrel that was blocked by the wad from the first shell that only made it about halfway down the bore. In spite of destroying the barrel of an almost new 870 Special Field, the young shooter came away unscathed save for the checkbook damage to replace the barrel.
Well, this old girl is due for a makeover. Her new wardrobe will consist of fighting garb, as long as she stays in this house her days as a field/sporting gun are pretty much over. This Cinderella already has teeth, she will be growing some fangs now. It would be nice to be able to get 'er done in time for Awerbuck's class in May, but time and money constraints will probably make a complete "do" impossible by then. I will likely take her along and shoot her for at least one day in the class, just on GP. I can get her to a workable state in a day with materials already on hand here, and backup guns are always recommended for classes like this anyway.
I have already started this Cinderella's rehabilitation- with a bath. In her original state she was just too filthy to handle without getting dirty hands. That's sad, I hate to see such neglect, though in this case it was relatively benign. There was a little superficial rust, some freckling on the receiver and some powdery orange cancer showing when I pulled the trigger plate and the stock off the receiver. After all, it was the rough surface appearance that let me get out the door with the gun in the first place, "nice" 870 Wingmasters around here fetch $250 and up (mostly 'up') no matter how old they are. Fortunately for my checkbook, this one wasn't "nice". If you want to protect your investment in polished blued steel and walnut, you'd best learn to take proper care of it.
First up will be changing out the lifter, bolt and slide with the parts from a Flex-Tab kit. She'll soon be wearing a different barrel, a plain bead sighted 18" parkerized Police gun barrel with a 3" chamber suited to her receiver's abilities. It will have to have the forcing cone done and it might just get choke tubes installed before all is said and done as well. She will eventually get a set of ghost ring sights from MMC, the front blade silver soldered on and a tritium vial inserted therein after the installation and refinish work are done, and the rear attached into drilled and tapped holes in the top of the receiver.
She will be getting a new skin, in this case consisting of a phosphate finish over a coarse bead blast, to get rid of the rust freckles and the previous owner's identifying scrawls. There might be a modern miracle coating applied over that, probably not since I like how a good parkerizing job looks all by itself. The shiny bright bowling-pin-finished walnut furniture with the oh-so-seventies impressed checkering will be going away, to be replaced with plain straight grained oil finished police gun walnut. That stock will be shortened by an inch and fitted with a new recoil pad, most likely a Remington R3 grind-to-fit in this case. There will be another stud for detachable sling swivels installed in the stock about three inches in front of the toe in the usual place, no fancy schmancy tack tickle slings on this one, just a carrying strap.
There will be a one shot Wilson magazine extension with a base for a detachable sling swivel in her future, most likely along with a Clark barrel clamp that is 'melted' a bit on its square edges so as to be a little nicer to fast moving fingers- just to make sure everything stays in place undamaged if the going gets rough. Inside the extension and magazine will be a Wilson magazine spring and follower. A six shot TacStar SideSaddle will find its way into position alongside the receiver on top of the usual thin coat of RIG grease, so it doesn't have to be removed and replaced for cleaning every time I turn around.
I'll have to come up with some way to mount a light, and right now I don't know exactly what that will be. Might be we take a piece of steel Weaver type base, fabricate a light rail from it and then silver solder it onto the bottom of the magazine extension for a Streamlight M3 or the equivalent. All we have to do is make sure there's enough room for the rail to clear the barrel when the magazine extension is screwed off for disassembly. Cheap/easy way to do it would be to use one of the ring type rails that goes under the magazine cap, but this is not intended to be a cheap/easy shotgun and so some other approach is likely.
And that will be it. Nothing left to do after that but shoot it, breaking in the new parts and the new finish and getting used to it along the way. It's not as if I don't know how to run an 870 already, or what I prefer to have on one as far as accessories are concerned. And it isn't as if this one won't get its share of trigger time as the makeover project progresses, nor is any of the above exactly graven in stone- I might still change my mind 8^).
Now then, back to work on her...
lpl/nc
My new Cinderella gun is a 30-year old working class 870 Wingmaster Magnum, courtesy of one of my usual FFL dealer haunts. I say working class because it had been used hard, put up wet and as near as I can tell, has never seen a fieldstrip level cleaning in all its born days until now. And the former owner scrawled his name and social security number in the left side of the receiver with an electric engraver (never mind the gun has a perfectly legible serial number prominently displayed). But I brought her home anyway, 'cause the price was right. How right? $150.
I keep telling people to look, and they will discover; seek and they will find, no need to buy Chicom copies or lesser guns when the real thing is out there for about the same or even less money. Friend Dave says goodnaturedly that maybe we should shut up telling people to go look for Cinderella 870s, or else they will all get gone and then there won't be any left when one of us needs one. Well, the supply might get thinned out a bit, but I kinda sorta doubt either one of us will ever be in a position to actually genuinely NEED another 870. I am not naming any numbers in either case, but Dave has said in passing here how many he has, and I don't actually really know how many I have but it's more than Dave, so that obviously means even by my own definition that I have enough.
Doesn't mean I didn't buy this one, and also a stripped receiver from another THR member (hey, that price was right too, and especially so since I can build that stripped receiver back up into a shootable gun out of the parts box without spending another copper-plated zinc penny on it) this week though. Don't think I was ever before profligate enough to buy TWO 870s in one week, so this is a sort of record for me.
Anyway, back to that bicentennial thing. Had to call Remington this AM to get the date of manufacture from the serial number. The gun didn't have its original barrel, somewhere in its checkered past that had gotten swapped off and a 28" VR MOD-choked 2 3/4" chamber barrel installed. So no hope of checking a barrel date code for a clue as to its birthday. I called over to Big Green on their toll free line, where after a few minutes on hold listening to Remington commercials (as if I needed to) a nice young lady informed me that Remington 870 Serial Number T426XXXM had been manufactured in the Year of Our Lord 1976.
Which for all you young sprouts who had not been born by then was the year of the much vaunted American Bicentennial, two hundred years since that momentous day in 1776 when The US of A came into being. Some manufacturers prominently marked their products that came off the line that year with special markings, including some firearms companies. What can you say, it was the 1970s and all sorts of things were going on.
Far as I know Remington did not get caught up in the red white and blue fervor that marked that particular year. There is nothing rollmarked on this receiver to indicate its date of birth has any more significance than that of any other 870. But knowing that this is a 1976 gun gives it a bit of extra panache for me. It guarantees I won't ever have any trouble remembering how old this gun is. It is pretty apparent from the wear and the superficial rust and the accumulated gunk that it had been around for a while, but it is often hard to tell how old a used gun really is just from surface appearance.
That matters with some guns. The nice thing about 870s is that unless a gun has some patently obvious functional difficulties, no matter what it looks like on the outside it will almost certainly run just fine. This is one book that you cannot read by the cover, the 870 design is so robust that it takes vast levels of abuse and wear to make one nonfunctional in a major way. Little things can be fixed easily. Almost always it is only little things that go wrong with old 870s, unless the shooter really messes up and does something like shooting with a plugged barrel. Only really bad 870 problem I ever saw was the result of a young man shooting a reload that had been through the wash and following it up quickly with another shot at a fleeting dove. Even though the first shot 'didn't sound right' he quickly pumped and shot again, and blew up the barrel that was blocked by the wad from the first shell that only made it about halfway down the bore. In spite of destroying the barrel of an almost new 870 Special Field, the young shooter came away unscathed save for the checkbook damage to replace the barrel.
Well, this old girl is due for a makeover. Her new wardrobe will consist of fighting garb, as long as she stays in this house her days as a field/sporting gun are pretty much over. This Cinderella already has teeth, she will be growing some fangs now. It would be nice to be able to get 'er done in time for Awerbuck's class in May, but time and money constraints will probably make a complete "do" impossible by then. I will likely take her along and shoot her for at least one day in the class, just on GP. I can get her to a workable state in a day with materials already on hand here, and backup guns are always recommended for classes like this anyway.
I have already started this Cinderella's rehabilitation- with a bath. In her original state she was just too filthy to handle without getting dirty hands. That's sad, I hate to see such neglect, though in this case it was relatively benign. There was a little superficial rust, some freckling on the receiver and some powdery orange cancer showing when I pulled the trigger plate and the stock off the receiver. After all, it was the rough surface appearance that let me get out the door with the gun in the first place, "nice" 870 Wingmasters around here fetch $250 and up (mostly 'up') no matter how old they are. Fortunately for my checkbook, this one wasn't "nice". If you want to protect your investment in polished blued steel and walnut, you'd best learn to take proper care of it.
First up will be changing out the lifter, bolt and slide with the parts from a Flex-Tab kit. She'll soon be wearing a different barrel, a plain bead sighted 18" parkerized Police gun barrel with a 3" chamber suited to her receiver's abilities. It will have to have the forcing cone done and it might just get choke tubes installed before all is said and done as well. She will eventually get a set of ghost ring sights from MMC, the front blade silver soldered on and a tritium vial inserted therein after the installation and refinish work are done, and the rear attached into drilled and tapped holes in the top of the receiver.
She will be getting a new skin, in this case consisting of a phosphate finish over a coarse bead blast, to get rid of the rust freckles and the previous owner's identifying scrawls. There might be a modern miracle coating applied over that, probably not since I like how a good parkerizing job looks all by itself. The shiny bright bowling-pin-finished walnut furniture with the oh-so-seventies impressed checkering will be going away, to be replaced with plain straight grained oil finished police gun walnut. That stock will be shortened by an inch and fitted with a new recoil pad, most likely a Remington R3 grind-to-fit in this case. There will be another stud for detachable sling swivels installed in the stock about three inches in front of the toe in the usual place, no fancy schmancy tack tickle slings on this one, just a carrying strap.
There will be a one shot Wilson magazine extension with a base for a detachable sling swivel in her future, most likely along with a Clark barrel clamp that is 'melted' a bit on its square edges so as to be a little nicer to fast moving fingers- just to make sure everything stays in place undamaged if the going gets rough. Inside the extension and magazine will be a Wilson magazine spring and follower. A six shot TacStar SideSaddle will find its way into position alongside the receiver on top of the usual thin coat of RIG grease, so it doesn't have to be removed and replaced for cleaning every time I turn around.
I'll have to come up with some way to mount a light, and right now I don't know exactly what that will be. Might be we take a piece of steel Weaver type base, fabricate a light rail from it and then silver solder it onto the bottom of the magazine extension for a Streamlight M3 or the equivalent. All we have to do is make sure there's enough room for the rail to clear the barrel when the magazine extension is screwed off for disassembly. Cheap/easy way to do it would be to use one of the ring type rails that goes under the magazine cap, but this is not intended to be a cheap/easy shotgun and so some other approach is likely.
And that will be it. Nothing left to do after that but shoot it, breaking in the new parts and the new finish and getting used to it along the way. It's not as if I don't know how to run an 870 already, or what I prefer to have on one as far as accessories are concerned. And it isn't as if this one won't get its share of trigger time as the makeover project progresses, nor is any of the above exactly graven in stone- I might still change my mind 8^).
Now then, back to work on her...
lpl/nc
