What Remington 870 did I just buy?

T

Texas Tony

Inactive
Check criticisms now please. First time shotgun owner.

I wanted a solid pump shotgun and reading up, the Remington 870 was widely recommended a solid gun. I stopped by a pawn shop on the way home just to see what they had, and left with a Remington 870 for $225. However, I'm not sure any thing else about it. is it a Magnum, Wingmaster, Express, plain 870? am pretty confident it is NOT a tactical shotgun. Did I overpay? (Not that it matters now). Here's what I know about the gun.

Butt stock and pump in good shape. No nicks or deep scratches. Stain is still good. The metal looks almost like teflon rather than blued. No rust. one side of barrell says Remington Arms Company Ilion, NY. The other side of the barrell says "12 GA 2 3/4 AND 3. 3 1/2 ONLY WITH SUPER MAG RECEIVER". Right above where shells go in (opposite ejector) it says "REMINGTON 870". Serial number is RS49219A. Pump action is smooth and it appears gun was well cared for.
 
Sounds good to me ??

By your description, it sounds like you have an 870-Express and if it's in fairly good shape, you did not pay too much. .... :)

Good luck and;
Be Safe !!!
 
He said the action finish was like Teflon, all of the Express guns I have seen were the sandblasted finish, rough like a emery board.
 
It sounds like it was recoated with a Teflon product like this one sold by Brownell's.

Your receiver may and may not be a Supermag. If it is not, do NOT fire 3.5" shotshells,

I tried looked at some code tables. The suffix "A" means it is a SuperMag and the prefix RS means made in November 1998. I would call Remington to confirm this before firing 3.5" shells. I am wondering if your barrel is newer than the gun.
 
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You posted a serial# in the Internet, Tony! Now all your children will be born naked, toothless and crying.

Seriously... you did fine, more so if it has screw-in chokes and you got them in the deal.
 
You have a SuperMag Express. Barrel says okay for 3-1/2" shells and the receiver suffix code 'A' is for Supermag. I have not seen any that didn't say Supermag on them, but Remington rollmarking is far from 100%. You got a very good deal sounds like.
 
Just to followup with the 1998 date given by Dreaming100Straight, the "RS" in front of the serial number does not indicate the date as per the Remington dating system

The code in which the months are sequenced using "BLACKPOWDERX" is a small code stamped on the side of the barrel, and it will only be two characters. If that code is RS, then November 1998 is right... but as best as I can tell the RS prefix on the serial number just indicates that its a remington serial number :)

what sucks is that if the barrel has been replaced or switched out for some reason, youre only dating the barrel, not the receiver.

You can just call Remington though, and give them the serial number
 
It seems to me that Remington (and a lot of other manufacturers) would be doing themselves a favor to follow Ruger's lead and just make Serial#/DOM unfo a freestanding page of their website.
 
RS is just a newer serial number prefix.
Remington serial numbers will only get you into a block of years. Barrel codes, where present - a lot of barrels have no barrel date code - are usually correct, but barrels get swapped all the time. Remington's dating service is very hit or miss. They told me two of mine did not exist. I used to have faith in their factory letter service... until I saw a letter with a gun on GunBroker stating that the gun was a Ducks Unlimited "Dinner Gun", which it clearly was not. That kind of mistake can cost someone significant money. I no longer have a lot of faith in any of their historical services.
Edit - the barrel date code is usually three (3) digits, and the first two are the code. Last one is an assembly station or assembler code.
 
Virginian-in-LA, my new 870P only has a 2 character barrel stamp. Not sure if it's something that has recently been stopped (my gun is a March, 2013 production date), or if its not extended to all models (870 Police, parkerized in walnut), but its clearly just an AH.

Even got out a jewelers loop to look closely, doesnt look like there was even an attempt for a third proof mark, before or after parkerization.
 
Like I said, Remington rollmarking is often hit or miss. Maybe they have changed to two digits, I don't know. I will have to look.
 
LOL, yeah, they could have just been lazy or careless too.... which *could* be scary, but its a great police magnum otherwise. The action was smooth like butter straight out of the box.
 
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