doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com model 31

The Remington Repeating Shotgun/Model 10 was a John D. Pedersen design. The Model 17 was based on a John M. Browning Patent No. 1,143,170 granted June 15, 1915. However, Remington was gearing up for WW-I at that time and it would be six more years before the gun came out. Remington's designer John D. Pedersen made design refinements in 1919 (applications filed Sept. 15, 1919, Patent No. 1,429,621 granted Sept. 19, 1922 and Patent No. 1,487,799 granted Mar. 25, 1924) and G.H. Garrison made further improvements. It was the patents on these improvements that forced Ithaca to wait until 1937 to bring out their slab-sided copy of this gun, though Ithaca had actually built some guns by 1932. Actually Pedersen has so many patent applications filed in that 1919 time frame it is hard to tell which really apply!

As far as the Remington Model 31 is concerned it is primarily Remington's designer Crawford C. Loomis --

Patent No. 1,763,714 -- C.C. Loomis
Patent No. 1,786,213 -- C.C. Loomis
Patent No. 1,834,410 -- C.C. Loomis
Patent No. 2,023,929 -- C.C. Loomis
Patent No. 2,039,814 -- C.C. Loomis

That Arnold Griebel engraved 31 is very nice and you couldn't buy that much engraving, of that quality, today for that kind of money. I was reaching for my checkbook, but then I saw those damn holes in the barrel!!

Remington solid and vent ribs were milled integral with the barrels on all their pumps and autoloaders up to the Model 11-48 and Model 870. Actually I don't know about the vent ribs on late Model 10TCs and Model 29TCs as I don't recall ever having either in my hands.

I thought I would never find a Remington 31 in original factory riot configuration at a reasonable price.

Then I saw this series 1931 from 1934. The varnish was 1/4 gone from the buttstock and the rest was coming off in big flakes.

I stripped and sanded the wood, followed by a number of coats of Watco Danish oil:



A Remington 31 is definately on the short list of pump shotguns worth having.

Researcher: thankyou for that clarification. As an odd-twist on all of this, I handled a fairly late-model Coast-to-Coast Hardware marked pumpgun at a small shop on Friday-last that was unmistakably a Model 31 clone. I didn't have my reading glasses on to get all the fine details off of the gun, but the design was an obvious copy. The only modification I could discern was a tang safety instead of the triggerguard location. From looking into Coast-to-Coast guns on the web, I'd guess it was made by Savage.

An interesting note to the insightful information by Researcher regarding the very productive Remington design engineer ,Crawford C. Loomis was at the same time he was designing/refining the future Model 31 ,he was engaged in converting the design of Monsieur Bonaparte Petrick's sliding top latch O/U into the Model 32 Remington. Very busy guy.

The Petrick became the Model 32, which then became the Valmet.....do you suppose Petrick ever got a dime for that? I handled a Petrick a few years ago, lovely gun.

Not sure about Valmet. The M 32 became the Kreighoff 32

My bad, the Kreighoff is correct. I do believe I handled a Valmet O/U a while back that also had the Petrick hooded-latch system as well.

Slow at work today, so I tore that Deluxe gun down and cleaned it. FWIW: Model 12s are much easier to dissemble and then re-assemble. Had to consult with a very useful video on YouTube by DTom to get it all back together again, but all-in-all I'm fairly impressed. The wood on the stock is serial numbered to the gun and it even comes with a factory-made wooden magazine plug in it. Nice! Like you would expect from a Pre-WWII firearm (September 1935), each piece has been lovingly shaped and then fitted to the action. Once you figure out the critical sequence of re-assembly, it all slips-back together very smoothly. It was fairly slick before I cleaned it; now cycling it is almost-effortless. I think I'll go ahead buy one of Tony Galazan's period-correct recoil pads to get the stock back out to 14-inches. He has a couple that will work, but I think I'll spring for the red Hawkins pad. I've got a Model 12 from 1932 that has one. It looks pretty good and it is definitely period-correct.

I had trouble getting the magazine lock nut assemply back on the magazine on the above 31. In fact, I had to send it in a disassembled state to a gunsmith to get it back together.

I was worried about that too. There are only two videos on YouTube about dissembly/assembly of the Model 31, and on the first one I watched, the narrator had a problem with corrosion impeding dissembly on his at that location. Considering that mine very likely came from one of the most dismal places on earth, NW Pennsylvania (at least in winter!), it was surprisingly corrosion-free and came apart without a hitch (although I'd bet that it had never been fully taken-down for a cleaning in it's lifetime). Re-assembly of the bolt carrier/slide components was the real challange, and only after watching the second video did I figure it out. It would have been pretty tough to do without that info.