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Instead of a Remington 11-87 I'd tell you to look at a Browning Silver or Maxus. My experience, or rather that of of friends, is that the Remington has misfire/jamming issues. Every single one I've seen. One guy I hunt with has his in pieces while we're in the blind more than it's put together.
I love the Browning Silver and it's not too great a price increase over the 11-87. But at this point I'm looking for inexpensive and reliable: a workhorse. The 11-87 is 2/3 the price of the Silver and that matters to me at this point. When I'm ready to spend some serious $$$ on a shotgun I plan on going Browning or Beretta for an O/U and maybe adding a Fabarm autoloader as well someday.
You may have reliability issues. I goose hunt with 8-10 guys, 1 of them has an 11-87 and he too has issues every year. Of course we're shooting hundreds of rounds in cold weather, but the Silvers, Berreta's and Benneli's are virtually flawless.
If your just deer hunting, you should be okay. You're not going to cycle a crap load of rounds.
You may have reliability issues. I goose hunt with 8-10 guys, 1 of them has an 11-87 and he too has issues every year. Of course we're shooting hundreds of rounds in cold weather, but the Silvers, Berreta's and Benneli's are virtually flawless.
If your just deer hunting, you should be okay. You're not going to cycle a crap load of rounds.
The 11-87 would mostly be for deer. I don't know if it was like this when you lived here in VA but in a lot of counties here there are rifle restrictions for deer season. It makes sense, actually. People hunt grounds adjacent to residential areas and other developed areas and a bullet from a rifle can get away from you a lot faster than a slug from a shotgun. I enjoyed heading into the mountains here at the Rapidan Wildlife Management Area where I hoped to use my .243 on a nice buck. No luck there, but I have dropped a pretty nice buck with my 870 Express at a hay farm not far from Fredericksburg.
When I was a kid Fredericksburg was still rifle and when I lived in the Eastern Panhandle of WV- it was also rifle.
But ironically the first deer I harvested was in Fredericksburg (Wilderness), and it was with my Dad's old single shot Bay State 12 ga! An old gun- very basic. Lock, stock and barrel. It had a hammer draw like H&R shotguns. Full choke, 2-3/4", 00Buck shot. That thing kicked like a Jersey cow. I recall that little buck dropped like a sack of potatoes.
Where I live in Montana is a weapons restricted area. Shotgun, muzzleloader, traditional handgun, crossbow or bow. I use my Savage O/U, with the full choke set to go first. I still use 00 buck, and they still drop like a sack of potatoes, lol.
For me it is the Benelli M2, with ghost ring sights, and the inertia stock.
The Benelli system of inertia driven semi-auto type of systems, means that as long as it has standard recoil, the Benelli does not care what type of load it is, buck shot; bird shot; slug or anything in between. The Benelli is the fastest semi-auto shotgun, that I have ever shot.
Turkish shotguns were mentioned earlier. Anyone have any positive/negative experiences with them?
Husband and I are new to clay shooting and recently purchased CZ Redheads Premieres. Mine is a 20 gauge, o/u, reduced length which is perfect as I am older and short. His is a 12 gauge. We've been shooting with them about 6 months and have had zero problems. We joined a league so we're shooting at least once a week. The price was very reasonable considering we're new to this and didn't want to invest too much for a beginner gun.
I mentioned my CZ Canvasback so since CZ is made by Huglu, a Turkish company I think, you might be thinking of me. My experience is pretty limited but, as I mentioned, there's a least one guy who did a torture test on his and it did perfectly. I know prices vary with wood quality and engraving but, since the CZ was not intended to be a high end model, it seems to me that it is all about reliability for the money. I guess they meet the threshold for a good quality gun, then. I had a couple of instances where mine would get hot and lock up so I couldn't break it open but I solved the problem by putting more grease on it than I thought it needed.
CZ's are generally fine. A good friend I pheasant hunt with has one and he's had no real issues. Some early models apparently had a habit of double firing, but I believe that has long since been fixed.
I think the other guns like Stoeger, Savage- those guys importing shotguns from Turkey- I'm just not sure how well controlled it is. Turkey, at least a decade ago, had a lot of little guys making shotgun and/or parts, and the qc was just kind of sketchy. I think the metallurgy is overall pretty good.
If you sift through the credible reviews for various shotguns, you can get a sense of what you're getting.
Here's kind of what resides out in review land on Turkish guns-
The standards for Turkish product are dubious, for Turkey is not part of the C.I.P. nor need they pay any attention to SAAMI voluntary standards. The “cooperative” type of company, as in Turkey, often has piece-workers and the person that is supposed to be in charge of quality control is sometimes the same person making the part. This is not an environment that is conducive to consistency or quality.
A recent poll asked the question, "What two brands of shotguns leave you LEAST SATISFIED?"
While not scientific or based on specific criteria (you might want to contract Scott Rasmussen for something of that nature), the trend is a very clear one. The only brand to hit above 20%, Stoeger at 26%, is Turkish through and through. Add in the 5% of Yildiz, the 7% of Huglo, and whatever part of the 15% attributed to Mossberg you'd like to attribute to the Khan-made “Silver Reserve,” you have, at the very least, a very weak reputation when it comes to shotgun brands of Turkish origin.
There are some bright spots, though, as in the recently reviewed Weatherby SA-08 twenty gauge autoloader. While CZ-USA has had better luck with their O/U models than their autoloaders, based on what I've tested, they do offer a five-year warranty and dependable warranty service.
Country of origin is not usually precisely defined. Most often it means "assembled in." Most shotguns are full of internationally sourced parts, from stocks to shims, choke tubes, shell elevators, sight beads, screws and springs. “Made In” is largely an obsolete concept and has been for years. Nevertheless, the notion that Turkish shotguns are inferior has proven to be more right than wrong. However, thankfully, there are exceptions. The best advice is to employ a health dose of skepticism and to be a bit cautious if you don't want your shotgun to actually be a turkey.
I'm not going to comment on whether the author is qualified, but that's kind of the stuff I've picked up here and there.
Last edited by Threerun; 01-09-2017 at 12:47 PM..
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