Remington’s Weird Shotguns (That Failed)

Remington has been producing firearms since 1816. It’s not a secret that, in recent years, they’ve had some issues financially. The Freedom Group, a part of Cerberus Capital, was responsible for expanding Remington and acquiring numerous brands. It was also responsible for its collapse. However, we aren’t going to dig too deep into the failings of Remington, but rather five specific weird shotguns they produced that failed.

Remington 105 CTi

Remington designed the first bottom feed and bottom eject shotgun, so it wasn’t a stretch that they’d try to bring that technology to a semi-auto platform. The Remington 105 CTi was a semi-auto shotgun that did everything from the bottom. The gun was intended for sporting use and was a gas-operated gun.

It was known to be soft recoiling and lightweight, but the gun has serious reliability issues. The CTi would often fail to feed and eject properly. It was a svelte gun that was friendly to both left and right-handed shooters. As far as appearances go, it was beautiful, and Remington tried to save it with the CTi II, but these weird shotguns never ran right.

Remington 887

One of Freedom Group’s ideas was to take the 870 and copy the Benelli SuperNova. The 887 was born and featured a 3.5-inch chamber, a rotating bolt, and a polymer finish called ArmorTek. It basically ripped off the Benelli design, but the coating was, hmm, odd. Some liked it, I thought it was butt ugly.

As far as weird shotguns go, they weren’t bad guns. It received mostly good reviews, but one reviewer called it “the worst shotgun I’ve ever tested.” Opinions were mixed. There was a recall because the firing pin got stuck, causing the gun to slam fire. Ultimately, like most Freedom Group Remingtons, it was discontinued and disappeared.

Remington 870 Competition Trap Single Shot Shotgun

Have you ever wanted a gas-operated, single-shot 870? What? Why not? Maybe you should shoot trap more? Remington designed this odd 870 for the trap market, which is a single-shot market. The gun uses a gas-operated system to reduce recoil while shooting trap.

These weird shotguns were still pump guns. You had to open the action with the pump and load a round directly into the chamber. Ejecting the cartridge also required you to operate the pump. These weird guns were never super popular, and most trap shooters seemingly preferred their lightweight single-shot clay pigeon killers.

Remington Model SPR-94

The Remington Model SPR-94 wasn’t just a weird series of shotguns. They were a weird series of combination guns. These double-barrel guns used a 12 gauge top barrel and a .223 bottom barrel. They were designed to be super handy combination guns for hunters. These were actually branded Russian Baikal guns rather than American-produced Remingtons.

The SPR-94s were a neat idea, and I’d love to see a comeback. The combination of a rifle and shotgun barrel gives you a gun that hunts practically anything. You could hunt deer, coyotes, hogs, rabbits, squirrels, and whatever else you could want. Sadly, the Russian imports dried up, and the SPR-94 disappeared.

Remington 7188

Our last of Remington’s weird shotguns is the Remington 7188. It’s an insanely rare shotgun that was produced for the SEAL teams in Vietnam. Shotguns became handy tools in Vietnam for anti-ambush work and close-range jungle fighting. The 7188 was a select fire shotgun capable of firing full auto.

The seven-round shotgun could quickly dispense its payload. The idea was to fire as much buckshot as possible in the direction of an ambusher. It worked, mostly, but was fragile and easily malfunctioned when dirty. As you’d imagine, dirt and grime were prevalent in the jungle.