Remington 870

Origins

Pump-action shotguns had been used by American soldiers since the Winchester Model 1897 went to France in 1917 as a trench gun. After the Second World War, Remington Arms of Ilion, New York, wanted a new pump gun to compete with the Winchester Model 12 and the Ithaca 37, but one that was cheaper to build and easier to service. A team of Remington engineers, usually credited as L. Ray Crawford, Phil Haskell, Ralph Clarkson and C. H. Morse, produced the Model 870, which went on sale in 1950. The first guns were sold under the name Wingmaster, with polished blued steel and walnut stocks. The plainer Express line, introduced in the late 1980s, made the design available at a much lower price.

Design & Construction

The 870 is a slide-action shotgun. The shooter works a sliding fore-end back and forth to eject the spent shell, cock the hammer and load a fresh round from a tubular magazine under the barrel. Two steel action bars connect the fore-end to the bolt, one on each side, so that the slide runs straight and does not twist or bind when worked hard. The receiver is machined from a single billet of steel, which makes it strong and long-lasting. The bolt locks into an extension of the barrel, and barrels can be changed in seconds without tools, so one gun can carry a long bird barrel or a short riot barrel. The trigger group drops out as a unit on two pins. Military and police guns usually have 18 to 20 inch barrels, rifle or bead sights, and a magazine extension that raises the capacity to seven or eight rounds. The standard chambering is 12 gauge, though the gun has been made in smaller gauges for sport.

Combat Use

In the Vietnam War American units used several makes of pump shotgun, among them the Ithaca 37, the Winchester Model 12 and the Remington 870. The shotgun was valued on point in thick jungle, where contact came suddenly at very short range. The US Navy bought 870s for its river patrol units, and SEAL teams used modified guns, some with extended magazines, as a close-range weapon on raids and ambushes. The Marine Corps adopted the 870 as its standard combat shotgun, and a parkerized Marine version with an extended magazine remained in service long after the war. In the 1990s and 2000s shotguns returned to prominence for guarding checkpoints and prisoners and for breaching doors. In Iraq and Afghanistan Marines and soldiers used 870s, and short-barreled 870 variants such as the Modular Combat Shotgun, to blow hinges and locks with special breaching rounds before entering buildings.

Legacy

The 870 became the standard police shotgun of the United States, carried in the patrol cars of thousands of departments for decades. Remington passed seven million guns by the mid-1990s and ten million in 2009, making the 870 the best-selling shotgun ever built. Newer designs such as the Mossberg 590, the semi-automatic Benelli M4 and the Franchi SPAS-12 competed for military and police orders, but the 870 remained in wide use. Remington itself went bankrupt in 2020, and its firearms business was sold, but production of the 870 continued under the new owners. Its twin action bars and interchangeable barrels became features that other pump shotguns copied.