Remington 1100 Competition Master and Mockup
" With the growth of 3-Gun Matches in Practical Shooting, Remington is pleased to announce a factory built, competition-ready, 12 gauge autoloading shotgun, the Model 1100 Competition Master. Built on the legendary Model 1100 platform and designed for high-speed shotgunning, this competition shotgun is "ready-to-rock" the world of Practical Shooting.
This fast handling, well-balanced Model 1100 features a matte gray synthetic stock and fore-end, matte black finish on receiver and barrel and the new R3™ Recoil Pad, designed by Sims Vibration Laboratory, provides for ultimate recoil absorption and ease of gun mounting. Forget after market accessories, the Model 1100 Competition Master comes complete with a magazine extension tube
(capable of handling eight 2-3/4 inch shells in the magazine tube and one in the chamber), a receiver-mountable ammo carrier for seven extra shells and sling swivel studs. With an all new carrier release button designed for speed and the extra large operating handle, reloading is quick. Fiber optic front sight and steel mid bead sight top the 22-inch vent rib barrel, providing rapid target acquisition. " That is the quote directly from Remington's Website and its worth quoting especially the first paragraph. With a suggested retail at $965.
Our reasoning for contacting Remington last year for one of their Remington Model 1100 Competition Master Shotguns, was along the same lines the 3-gun sport is growing so fast yet the firearm manufactures in general have not taken the market seriously and in our opinion they are thinking short-sided when they do. Linda Powell so informed me of Remington's Lone wolf (my words)policy of Internet initiatives. With the recent collaspe of the over-hyped Shooters.com and other "investor backed and Brand name sponsored" internet programs its almost understandable the lack luster appeal for those in the marketing of firearms.
The Remington 1100 Competition Master is not being manufacture this year for reasons quoted to us by Remington's Eddie Stevenson. " The Competition Model flew off the shelves but what caught us off guard was who was buying, home defense users, and not the Three-Gun shooters. In light of that we decided to pause and 'rethink' the line." I posed the question the; "Who cares who is buying your gun are you not just happy that its selling?". "We set out a commitment to the competition shooter with this product line and Remington likes to leads from the front of the pack", Eddie Stevenson claimed " and we expect the reintroduction of our competition shotgun line to do just that."
I then posed the question "What about mocking one up from a stock gun?" In other words what would it take to turn a closet bound bird gun into a Summertime shooter? I have to tell everyone that the question kind of caught the company off guard. The unasked question is who would do that, but since the Remington 1100 has been one of the most reliable and popular auto-shotguns since the 1960's, even beating back Remington's own introduction of the Remington 1187 line, it makes since that there are a lot of low cost auto's out there that could be turned into a competition worthy shooter. While Remington is in the business of making NEW shotguns supporting the first time shooter who is trying to dip their toe in the water for as low of a price as possible is crucial for long term growth. Competition is addictive and it always leads to shooters trading up their guns for a better score, doesn't matter if we are talking about Golf , Skeet or 3-gun; the hardest part is getting them on field of play the first day.
Upgrading your Remington 1100 Bird Gun for 3-Gun Competition
Now the goal here is to take an 1100 Shotgun that you already own and upgrade the parts for competition use. Giving you a dual use 1100 Shotgun. I would expect that a Bird/Competition package would not be far off in the future from Remington. Throwing an extra cocking lever, tube and barrel in the box for a package price. For now we are not there yet and we will just have to rely on your local gun smith or good old fashion do it yourself. Myself I bird hunt with an old 1937 Winchester Single shot Shotgun, a gun that is highly sought after by collectors and competition shooters alike for how well it shoots, this meant I had to go out and purchase a brand new Remington 1100 to do this review. I was able to pickup a Black synthetic 1100 for $437 Brand new from the local gun store. I would recommend that if your going to do the same avoid the Wal-mart and K-mart guns.
99% of this upgrade is very easily done by the average gun owner as the take down is nothing more than what should be a standard cleaning procedure. We had one area that took us 5 minutes of head scratching and a little tooling to make work properly but it appeared to be a hiccup with our new gun and not what should be a standard problem.
The official upgrade list from Remington that was emailed to me is as follows. I have hyperlinked up the part numbers but we are at this time unable to crawl Remington's Parts department in order to provide parts search function, due to the way their website is designed. ( I will attempt to address this issue as quickly as possible- Just click a part number to see if I have it done yet. Clicking a description will attempt to find the part at Brownells, and NumRich)
(Click to Enlarge picture Note that Microsoft has automatic scaling you may need to turn off or adjust to make larger) First off don't let the schematic scare you as there is no need to break your shotgun down into little bitty pieces to do this upgrade. Start to finish taking my time to inspect and pay attention so that my Shotgun was "Pretty" when complete it took me only 1 hour and 15 minutes. The most obvious advantage to the competition is increased capacity and there is one of the first hiccups, and older 1100 this is a simple swap and replacement of the mag-tube. On the newer 1100's the spring-loaded detent ball is not present and you must upgrade even if your using aftermarket parts like Mag-Tech Tube extensions. A note for first time shooters Mag-Tech makes a 6 round mag extension, 8 round mag extension, and a 10 round mag extension. The 10 round can result in a 20 point deduction in your score so know that more is not better when buying parts to do this upgrade. The Remington mag tube extension is a competition legal 8 rounds.
I don't want to go into great detail for those who need to modify their guns to accept the extension but I will say its VERY easy and if you question your ability to follow the instructions when you buy the part have a gun smith or the dealer do it for you. Again at no point should even a novice feel completely overwhelmed by taking on this task but even I will ask a guy who does these things for a living to do it for me because practice not only makes perfect but it also makes pretty. Though during this upgrade at no time did I take this to a gun smith.
(Click to Enlarge picture Note that Microsoft has automatic scaling you may need to turn off or adjust to make larger) The main upgrades such as the Recoil pad and the Competition sights are a simple plug and play upgrade. The Carrier assembly (item 22 of the Trigger schematic) gave us pause as should any time you have to remove pins from an assembly loaded with springs. The E-Clips holding our pin (item 32 of the Trigger schematic) in place were easily removed it should be noted that the carrier latch and carrier spring plunger and spring need to be held in a upward perpendicular to the trigger assembly (item 28, 29 and 31 of the Trigger schematic) to prevent the spring from launching across the room and to remove the Carrier assembly easily. Ours required more force to remove than I would of liked so take time to see the position of the Carrier latch before you remove the carrier assembly. Now on our trigger assembly the carrier latch pin (item 30 of the Trigger schematic) was permanently pinned and had no e-clips, THIS DOESN'T need to be removed anyway . Pushing the spring back in and holding the carrier latch up while installing the new Carrier latch assembly and replace the carrier assembly pin (item 32 of the Trigger schematic) and replaced the e-clips, but the machine during manufactures assembly that opened the pin to prevent travel had created a burr that prevented our new carrier assembly from moving freely. Very carefully I took a Dremel with a sanding drum (don't put a cutting disk near your gun EVER for any reason it will only cause you grief.) Worked the burr down taking care not to eliminate the pins spread to prevent travel when shooting.
As I stated all of this was fairly simple (to me anyways), and I am always afraid of the factory gremlins that can launch a spring from a location before unseen when disassembling a firearm.
So How did the Remington 1100 competition Shotgun shoot?
Well for the most part there really isn't anything unique about the 1100 competition versus a standard 1100, its just better suited parts on a solid automatic shotgun foundation. The barrel is shorter and it patterns so well the thought of taking it back to a long barrel for birds will have to be a wait and see this fall for live birds. The Black synthetic stock of our version versus the actual 1100 Grey polymer is a nicer look in black, in my opinion. The benefit to the light grey is definitely a Sun issue and not a gun issue. Since the Frame is black on both versions leaving your gun in the sunlight at a shoot will most likely burn a pinky finger when loading the shells. The larger operating handle has obvious benefits due to its size but I don't like the fell when cocking the shotgun with a pinky pull, I am thinking a slight top tilt forward to say 80 degrees versus 90 would give it a closer fit to the natural crook of the hand when cupped for both and index finger pull as with the pinky pull. It seemed designed for a two finger pull which is not handy if you need to quickly clear a spent case that didn't clearly eject. The R3 Recoil pad is outstanding and really should be standard equipment on all 1100 shotguns. I would like to see a sling spacer for the butt pad to prevent having to screw into the stock to put a sling on the shotgun. Shortening the production stock and adding a blank spacer to the recoil pad would give great overall versatility to the guns for sizing it to the shooter and adding spacers which contain prefabed sling eyes. I did not receive a side-saddle 7 shot clip from Remington and I would of liked to have mounted that since it uses the retaining pins in the trigger to mount to the receiver.
Our shotgun is rather sensitive when trying to get the bolt to hold in the open position. Definitely something you want to keep your fingers clear of when your cleaning this shotgun. I have always recommended a complete tear down cleaning of the 1100 shotgun. Break down is simple and its easy to get weeds, dirt and other debris behind the bolt. The large button on the carrier assembly is a huge advantage when loading this shotgun and this is another area where I would like to see Remington just make this a standard feature on all 1100 shotguns, as it eliminates the long slide versus the quick popping the shells into position for loading into the tube. I see a huge advantage to bird hunters who like to keep their eyes on the water or down range while they load their shotgun by feel. Would recommend this part upgrade to ALL 1100 shotgun owners.
Remington gave us two different barrels one with and one without the vent rib. We chose the vent rib for our mock up and I like the green fiber for the site bead. Its always visible and easier to ignore than the red which makes it much easier to shoot by feel and not thought. I would like to see a palm swell on the pistol grip for better grip memory moving the shotgun into and out of shooting position is much easier with a better contact area in the palm of the hand where the skin is a bit more sensitive.
So was building one cost effective? If I was converting 1100 I had already purchased most definitely this is a great way to get more bang for your already spent bucks. I would suggest a slow build. What you need for a good competition gun is the tube extension, barrel, and carrier assembly, which put the build at $253 with $200 of that being the barrel. Which aftermarket or one without a vent rib may be a better fit to a budget build. The Shotgun has been a favorite these past few weeks for eliminating 4 legged garden thieves named Bugs(It patterns REALLY well). I can see rabbit hunters, windy day quail hunters as well as competition shooters, and obviousally home defense users all taking some benefits of these improvements to their shotguns.
In the interest of disclosure I would like to thank the folks at Remington for sending us all parts we used for this build. We would like to encourage our readers interested in building their own 1100 competition Shotgun to contact Remington's part department at 1-800-243-9700, Monday-Friday, 9am-5pm EST
