WWII Remington Model 11 "Military Riot Gun"

[Bunker]

Looks like the date code makes it a Jan 1942

You are correct….”BL” is January 1942.  Not completely out of the realm of possibility but certainly not the norm.  Often the barrel dates predate the weapon as explained earlier but generally not by an entire year, although I did read on one of the forums sometime ago of the same coding on a 474xxx Model 11 but the individual didn’t say whether the SNs matched and he didn’t provide any photographs.  I personally have not seen a “BL” example that was coded on a 1943 serial number but certainly not to say they couldn't exist, it is possible since it predates the weapon serial number, just not the norm.  Barrels were interchangeably swapped but if that were the case, the serial numbers would likely not match the receiver.

According to the archived factory ledger, #456516 was the last Model 11 produced in Jan 1942, so there are a few possibilities.  One, not the original barrel (matched to Model 11, #473620) and was changed out at some point; two, barrel was sitting in a bin for a year before being installed, or three, improperly marked when originally coded. 

An interesting note is that the folks at Remington provide production dates that often don’t jive with any documentation or author.  As an example they said mine was produced in 1939, when in fact it was clearly produced in 1943, without a doubt.  They have admittedly said that record keeping back then was not so good, so depending on the year most take that with a grain of salt.

[Loose}{Cannon]

Thanks bunker....  I just took the barrel off and its a match.   Whole gun is matching minus the stock. 

[Bunker]

Thanks bunker....  I just took the barrel off and its a match.   Whole gun is matching minus the stock.

That’s good that everything matches.  So the “BL” I mentioned in the same range as yours is probably legit as well.  The consequence generally is if everything matches, finish is the same as the weapon, and the barrel code predates the production date, it’s generally GTG.  Admittedly, the ones I’ve seen predated are within a couple or months, not this long.  And then again it could have also been miscoded and I’ve seen several of those.  Just take that unmolested NIB “BM” example I posted, it really should be “BMM” or “MM” by all accounts because of the serial number, and we know that it's very likely a January 1943 produced weapon.  So this one is clearly mislabeled.

Some more shots of that 1943 NIB Model 11 (not mine) since NIB M11s are fairly scarce to come by.  It comes with the original Remington box and paperwork numbered to the weapon.  The shotgun is still in cosmoline.  The only thing that I see is there is some light flaking on the left side of the stock and around the cartouche and FJA inspector stamp, which would brother me, but nevertheless a very beautiful Model 11 for sure.

[Justin Hell]

Very nice shotguns guys!

Its odd, because right after this post started I watched a Kurt Cobain documentary and they mentioned it was one of these he was killed with. (Most likely by Il Duce from The Mentors...it wasn't sucide)