A Gun a Week: Remington 1100 LW, 28 Gauge

My true pair of Remington 1100 LWs.

I wasn't going to take any short cuts with the whole gun a week thing, but this is gonna be a twofer this time. The two Remington 1100 LWs I have are pretty much identical with only minor differences made to tailor-fit the guns to the "shootahs", so it kind of makes sense to write them up together.

Backing up a little bit, I ought to mention that if shooting skeet with a 12 gauge pump shotgun teaches you anything, it's that you don't need an ounce and an eighth of lead shot to knock tea saucers out of the sky on a skeet field. And by the time I figured that out, I'd become a professional skeet shooter in the NSSA--National Skeet Shooting Association. To play the game right, you need four guns so you can chase clay targets in four different gauges. The players are 12 gauge (the Big Stick), 20 gauge, 28 gauge, and .410 bore. For reasons unknown to me, .410 bore ain't called out by gauge (it'd be a 68 gauge), but that's another post...And having shot all four of these with mixed, and sometimes depressing results--know how to make a million dollars shooting skeet? Start with two million--I quickly realized that there was something about the sweet-shooting 28 gauge in a soft-shooting Remington 1100 that borderlines on magical. "It shoots itself," I like to say.

Now that scrolling would make a good tattoo.

The standard 28 gauge target load is 3/4's of an ounce of shot in a shell that 2 3/4 inches long. It flat just doesn't beat you silly on a skeet field as you shoot it like a 12 gauge gun does. Even 20 gauge guns can be stompers since they are often lighter and thus don't fight recoil like heavier guns do a la one of Newton's laws. Other 28's by other manufacturers follow suit with smaller frame guns, so you might feel a little more recoil, but it will still never be on par with a 20 gauge. The 28 gauge 1100 LW starts right out of the box as the perfect combination of a sub-gauge gun with all the recoil-dampening heft of an all-steel, gas-operated American-made shotgun.

And that's why I have two of them. It's the oldest trick in the book...you buy a shotgun for you, and then, if you have a kid laying around, or a girlfriend, you buy another one for "them". The soft shooting, shoulder kissing, target busting 28 is the perfect gun for first time shooters, kid shooters (kids that shoot, not people that shoot kids), and shooting wives. Not much pisses me off more than smart-ass dads and husbands taking non-shooters, kids and women, to the range and laughing and guffawing as the newbies get the shit kicked out of them by a 12 gauge shotgun. It's stupid, thoughtless, and does more to turn new shooters off our sport than any Democratic Party ideology!

Mine of the right, and the chopped down model on the left.
I bet there's a "youth model" 1100 in Remington's latest
catalog, but I cooked mine up at home.

 My first one I bought used off a guy named Cozart Ellington. If the man's name doesn't exude class and sophistication, then I don't know what does anymore. He was a world-traveling wing shooter set to thin his herd of guns in the safe and offered me his 1100 LW. He'd been to Mother Russia to shoot Ptarmigan and all over the U.S. wing shooting and hunting. Naturally I snapped it right up and have had it ever since. I've sort of lost touch with the man since then and often wonder about him--the last time I saw him at our gun club he asked me if I still had it. Only the IRS could make me sell it I tell him...you know, "From my cold, dead hands!"

It came with two barrels since it was made before the days of screw-in chokes. The one barrel choked in Skeet is the go-to barrel when I'm heading to the club, but I have stuck the Modified-choked barrel on the receiver to hunt dove before. I hafta say though, that I suck at dove hunting so I just stay with the Big Stick when hunting anything these days. I hate looking for birds that are weakly hit and the 12 gauge gives me more of the help (and by help I mean more shot pellets) I need when hunting. The 28 gauge will hunt, but you got to be a better shot than me. It might be perfect for pen-raised quail though. I've seen a 20 gauge poof a slow-to-rise, pen-raised quail to smithereens before, so even it can be too much despite also being a "sub gauge" gun.

As a professional Skeet shooter who retired after two seasons a broke and dejected, timed-up skeet shooter, I sold the other three 1100s I'd had to play with, but kept the 28. It's too perfect a gun to sell. It's also too perfect to hand to my son, who at the time of his first forays into shooting skeet, was a careless, rowdy "all-boy" kid who literally broke everything he ever owned and/or touched. I kid you not.

The boy poses with his rough and ready Remington 1100 LW several years ago.
I guess he's 13 or so? You can start new shooters out on a .410,
but a 28 has more shot  in the shell which means more busted targets! 

No, he'd have to get his own shotgun that I could hold in reserve for him in my safe...I mean it's his gun that I hold in stewardship for him...or something like that. OK, It's my gun, and I just let him use it. Whatever. The point is, when a buddy of mine wanted to get rid of a 28 gauge 1100 and all he wanted in return was a 12 gauge Remington 1100 I pounced! I traded him a Remington 11-87 12 gauge (a close cousin of the 1100) for his little beat up 28, and I mean I had to. It was just meant to be.

The boy's (and girl's) 1100 chopped down on the right
compared to mine on the left. You can see the difference
in length of pull.

When I got that second one from my hunting buddy Jay, it was a mess. It had had some surface rust on the receiver so someone had just spray painted over the rust and scratches. Which is no big deal--some old rusty guns need never be reblued if they can take a coat or two of Krylon! But for Pete's sake, take the wood off first to avoid over spray. Maybe try a little masking tape. As it worked out, thank goodness, most of the paint rubbed off and the gun looks pretty respectable now. The next step was cutting it down for a little feller.

The date is wrong, I doubt he's five years old here. But there he is adding a shell
for a double on station two with the trusty 28 before the barrel was cut down.

I had the barrel shortened and re-beaded, and I cut the butt stock down and padded it to little feller size to make shooting fun and easy for the boy. If the gun's too big for a shooter, or too heavy, he or she is going to do lousy at shooting skeet or any other kind of clays game. The gun has to fit right for the best possible outcome, and it is always nice, I repeat, if the gun doesn't beat the shooter silly. No, going home with a bruised arm isn't always necessary. The resulting gun, as it turns out, is a pretty good little shooter.

The great thing about having a cut down shotgun for my son, is that now I also have a great, cut down shotgun for my daughter, and it's also perfect for any ladies that want to take me up on my standing offer to shoot some skeet for a first time. What works out for a growing boy, also fits the bill for smaller women shooters who don't want to be bludgeoned by the Big Stick or laughed at on the skeet field that first time out. Introducing people to the fun of "blowing shit up" is extremely rewarding for me and I want a love of shooting to last with them rather than any pain or discomfort, and that's a very easy thing to do with a gun like these Remingtons.

It's not just a boy's sport. The girl stretches out the 1100 LW one day in 2012.
For first time skeet shooters, it can be more fun to pick an "easy" station like station
seven and parking there. Nothing gets them hooked like success.

I guess the only downside to being addicted to a 28 gauge is the price of shells. 28 gauge shells are more expensive when compared to the box of a hundred 12 or 20 gauge shells you can buy at Walmart from Winchester (not recommended) or Federal (highly recommended) which at last look, were going for about 26 bucks. Two boxes of 28's, that's fifty shotshells, go for about that much. So if you're gonna go shooting, you better be ready to spend some money on ammo.

The usual suspects when shooting the 28. Note the Super-X at one ounce
of shot. Hunt with those and you're in 20 gauge territory.

The best remedy I've worked out for that is reloading my own shells. It keeps the price down somewhat, and you end up shooting more for the same money. You even save time. I can still load a hundred shells before you can get in your car, get to Gander, buy a hundred and get back home. And so what that means is that if you take me up on my offer to go shooting, you get to use my shoulder-friendly gun, and I get to keep your empty Remington STS hulls so I can fill them back up! That's all I ask.

The 1100 LW sports a sleek receiver that contains the 28 gauge shell perfectly--some manufacturers use a one size fits all approach to weapons design. That thinness translates to wood that is also trim and fits your hand with no hint of being too big. Remington's been making them for quite sometime. I'm not sure you can still buy an LW, but they certainly have an iteration of this model somewhere in their latest catalog--get your wallet out and dig deep. The two I have were made in the mid seventies and sport a very mid-seventies look to them, with the pressed in fleur de lis "checkering"...but it's the white diamond on the pistol grip that make them.

Fleur de lis "checkering" and that white diamond...vintage.

Like I said, I'd be very reluctant to get rid of these two shotguns. Even cut down for smaller shooters, the boy's gun is still a fun gun to shoot, and the shorter barrel even makes it handier for home defense, though I have better choices around for that--including running away. It's always a joy to shoulder and shoot one of these. With hearing protection on, you can "hear" the machinery inside the receiver doing all its work. You can feel the bolt moving to and fro with your cheek and catch the empty hull hurtling away out of the corner of your eye because your eyes are still open and not clinched shut under recoil.

All and all, I don't think anyone could go wrong with a Remington 1100 28 gauge. You'll never be sorry if you're gonna be shooting all day at some clays or even if you're just carrying it all day upland hunting. Just don't forget to give me your empty hulls.