Apparently there was a class action suit against Remington, settled without much in depth litigation. We started talking about this in our metallurgy class today. Remington, it seems was using a nice machining steel (1140 M) from day one in their 870's, 1100's, and by extension, the earlier models. Several had failed, Remington had historically blamed the failures on poor quality control of reloads. Anyway, part of the settlement was to agree to use a higher quality steel--4140--and to pay the class a part of the monetary consideration, something over $10 million. Remington, not wanting to have their name besmirched in the liberal press, took the settlement. My instructor (definitely not anti-gun) worked for the law firm that represented the plaintiff class. He feels the older barrels (those mfd before 2000) are unsafe to use. You look at a barrel--one I am looking at now is an older (50's) one--and it must mike out at .050, although I have not measured it. It's hard to believe that wouldn't hold up to just about anything you could push through it. Anyone have any recollection of this?
