Remington autoloader

jdb

Inactive
I have just received a remington autoloader. I believe from all I have read and researched that it is made before the model 11. The forearm is trashed and the buttstock is cracked also. The serial number is 13111. From what I have been reading I believe this to be made in 1905. It has the Browning patents on the barrel. I was wanting to know as much as i can about it. One question is the barrel is short appr 18 1/4 inches did they make a riot gun back then? Another question is the plate that goes up when loading will not go up. I have yet to take it to the gunsmith as I just received it. But would like to get new wood for it and possibly shoot it if the gunsmith says ok. any ideas?
 
remington autoloader

oops feel like a dummy didnt realize you had to push the button to make the loading plate work.
 
Remington made Browning patent shotguns and marketed them in N America and S America. FN made and marketed Browning shotguns outside the USA, as well as some of the Browning branded shotguns. The John M Browning Automatic 5-shot shotgun (Auto-5, later A-5) was the first commercially produced autoloading shotgun in the USA. It was produced intermittently by Remington from 1905 until 1947. A few early examples were marked Browning Auto-5, then Browning Patent. It was produced and marketed as the Model 11. There was also a Model 11 Sportsman. During WW2, Remington made the Browning Auto-5 shotguns for Browning, since FN was in occupied Europe.
 
I've not seen an 11 with a barrel that short from the factory. Do check it by using a dowel dropped from the muzzle to a closed bolt face and marking it at the muzzle. If that is less than 18", the barrel's in violation of Federal Law w/o a special license.

If it's kosher, get it to a smith for a lookover. And ask him to show you how to set the rings for light or heavy loads. And if the wood's all there, most smiths are good at fixing cracks and so on.

The 11's a great shotgun, enjoy yours....
 
Maybe it was a criminals gun, or a gun cut down to resemble one.

It was the style of some criminals in the 1930's to cut down the barrel length (and buttstock) on Model 11's (and possibly the earlier Remington autoloader too) to make what were called "whippet" guns. (These guns were so-named because an armed robber could hide one under an overcoat and "whippet" out for a robbery.) Bonnie Parker (of Bonnie and Clyde fame) was once famously photographed kiddingly pointing one of these "whippet" guns at her partner in crime, Clyde Barrow. The barrel of the gun she was holding in that photo couldn't have been much longer than about 18", if that.

Remington did manufacture some Model 11's in riot gun configuration but I'm not sure if that was true of the earlier Remington autoloader.
 
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I believe the Model 11 Riot Gun was introduced in the early 1920's and it had a 20-inch barrel. Who knows when yours was cut, or why. It very well may have been a gangster's whip-it-out (or whippet) gun; but, those typically had shortened stocks and a shoulder lanyard/sling.

If only old guns could talk -- the tales they might tell.
 
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