Last Sunday I posted on a nice 1889 Remington hammer gun I picked up, 12 gauge, 32" steel barrels, .028" & .037" chokes, made 1901. I bought it for occasional hunting with a vintage hammer gun. Today we went out on a clays course to check for function.
I thought some of our BBS'rs would like to know my impressions of its design.
All together I only had 60 low pressure shells, mostly smokeless in plastics, and some black powder in papers. The gun worked perfectly, no malfunctions. Its rebounding hammers made opening very easy, no hammer or pin drag. I did have some pierced primers with RST factory shells, none with Remington primed reloads. The RST primers are apparently quite soft and the huge protrusion of the firing pins (.120" of travel) created big craters that pierced once in a while. The Remington primed reloads had much shallower dents, they looked "normal". I know Remington primers are hard but this test really underscores it for me. The drop of the stock took some getting used to, all my clays guns have much higher combs. I started hitting pretty well after 15-20 shots. We had five shooters in the squad and I scored out in the middle of the pack after my 60 rounds. Not too bad for my first shots with a 107 year old gun with tight chokes. One of my friends said the guns I show up with keep getting older and he wouldn't be surprised if I showed up with a blunderbuss next week.
The only thing I didn't like about the 1889 was the short extractor movement, only about 1/4". It took some doing to pick the hulls from the chambers.
All told, it was a good day out with an old timer! Silvers
Standly proudly, move over youngster....
A little smoke out there, who saw what?