If you frequent Rifleshooter.com, you’ll know, I often write about shotguns. It’s no surprise to my regular readers that my shotgun of choice is the Remington 870 equipped with Wilson Combat’s Trak-Lock II ghost ring sights.
Predominantly known for their 1911s, Wilson Combat also makes custom rifles and shotguns. Customizing Remington 870s, Wilson offers packages that range from basic conversions and rebuilds, to full house custom shotguns.
Wilson’s entry level shotgun service is known as the Remington Steal. For a nominal fee, Wilson will perform the following on your Remington 870:
- Replace All Worn and / or Damaged Parts
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Convert to 3” Magnum Chamber
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Convert Shell Feed to Flexi-Tab Anti-Jam System
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Install New Factory Remington ® Synthetic Buttstock and Fore Grip
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Install New Factory Remington ® Magazine Spring and Follower
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Replace Safety with Jumbo Head Safety
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Strip and Parkerize All External Parts
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Replace Trigger Assembly with a Professionally Remanufactured Trigger Unit
In short, you send them your old gun, they update it and make it work and look like new. Intrigued by the Remington Steal, I went through a pile of four beat up police trade-in 870 Magnums and picked the worst one of the bunch to send in.
After careful deliberation, I decided on the bottom gun (above).
Note the excessive wear.
The right side of the action was pretty beat up.
Top didn’t look so good either.
Left side… not good.
Some one went to town with an engraving tool on the trigger plate! Fixing this gun up would take a lot of work.
Wilson Combat offers four different Remington Steal packages; parkerized finish, parkerized finish with Trak-Lock sights, Armor-Tuff, and Armor-Tuff with Trak-Lock sights. I selected the package with the Armor-Tuff finish and Trak-Lock sights.
Fingers crossed, I threw my beat up old shotgun in a box and shipped it off to Wilson Combat so they could work their magic.
A few weeks later a box from Wilson Combat came, and when I opened it, I couldn’t believe my eyes…
The gun looked new! In addition to installing sights, a rebuilt trigger plate, new stock, and refinishing the gun, they also installed an oversized safety.
So it looked nice, but how’d it shoot? Well I loaded a Remington 2.75″ slug and fired my first shot at 25 yards and it was a little high but dead center (below). First round downrange was a great way to start.
I fired a few more slugs to refine my zero at 50 yards and proceeded to clean a 20 round combat course using 10 slugs and 10 00 Buck (below).
The Remington Steal package is a great way to update your old Remington 870. I’m happy I sent mine in. To learn more about Wilson Combat’s Remington Steal, visit their website. For a list of work Wilson performs on shotguns, click here.
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