On the left is my 1972 police spec Wingmaster. It was a police trade-in I picked up from Summit Gunbroker for $220 bucks. Finish is actually quite good for a .gov gun that has been banged around in a rack for 40 + years.

I have another in shipping now that wasn't a police issue gun and is in almost unfired shape. Exactly the same otherwise.

I love the old Wingmasters.

In the early to mid 1970's Remington made a Wingmaster "Tactical" model with that stock on it, an extended mag tube, the rifle sights, and the corn-cob style forend. I had a chance to snag one in mint condition on Gunbroker a few weeks back but like an idiot I let it go because it went over $400. Now I has a permanent sad.

Police Wingmasters were made just like the Wingmasters Remington sold on the commercial market in the metal bits. They tended to have slightly less ornate wood. As you can see on the picture I posted, the police model gun on the left has a stock with no checkering. The one on the right is an older Wingmaster (Pre-68) with checkered stock and fore end. The police model guns came usually with a 20" cylinder bore barrel with either a bead or rifle sights.

Of course, Remington also sold that exact shotgun on the commercial market as well, but it was the typical police model shotgun for a long time.

"Newer 870" is a loaded term. In the late 80's or early 90's Remington introduced the "express" line of 870's. The guns were designed to be cheaper to manufacture with a parkerized finish (which doesn't require as much polishing as the fine blued finish on the Wingmasters) and lower grade wood stocks without the glossy polyurethane finish found on the Wingmasters of the age.

That was originally the only real difference between the two.

Remington "economized" the 870 line more and more over time. They replaced the tried and true endcap with a plastic model, along with indenting the mag tube so you couldn't install an extended mag tube. They compromised the quality of other components like the extractor which went from being tool steel on the older guns to MIM on the more recent production guns. An 870 express I bought in the early 2000's has the MIM extractor, a baked on black polymer finish, the polymer trigger guard, and the fucked up mag tube/tube cap.

The quality of the 870's got so poor that police departments complained. So Remington created the 870 Police model that has the old Express style parkerized finish, a tool steel extractor, a metal trigger guard, better quality springs, the old school mag tube and end cap, and a receiver that is vibra-honed (just like all 870's used to be) to remove burs and tool marks in the receiver. The reputation of the dumbed-down 870 expresses was so bad that Remington had to establish an entirely different production line for the 870 police models.

Then Remington got bought out by Cerberus. So the already diminishing quality of the 870 express models got worse with poorer quality finishes, less QC on the important MIM'd parts like the extractor, etc. Search around and you will find plenty of reports of guns rusting, extractors breaking at stupidly low round counts, etc.

Even the post-cerberus police models suffer from poorer quality control, especially now.

My order of preference goes like this:

1. Old Wingmaster
2. Early parkerized Express models (my dad has one...it's a damn fine shotgun)


3. Pre-Cerberus 870 Police model




4. Immediately post-buyout police model 870

Note the gap because those are distant preferences and not necessary since you can get good 870s on Gunbroker for good prices.

I've been trying to acquire one for a while. People just keep bidding the shit out of them.

I've got the Wingmaster, and now I'm on the hunt for a good blued Winchester model 12 riot gun and an Ithaca 37 police model.

My friend's synthetic-stock 870P next to mine, lying on the nicest shooting benches you've ever seen.


Calverton benches.