Heirloom Model 1894 (circa 1898)

[gsaun039]

As I have mentioned elsewhere, my dad passed away earlier this year (age 98) after gradually declining health. As part of his estate, there were two Remington firearms which I have recovered as part of the estate settlement. This one is a Model 1894 SBS, 12-gauge. It has Damascus barrels and is a Model B. Serial Number is 107231 which places its production adjacent to the one shown in a different post (https://i.imgur.com/I22anF6.jpg). Although I fired this gun in my youth at the back of our 98 acre dairy farm in Chantilly, VA, it has been many years since I last fired it on the farm in 1963. While it is possible I fired it later in the 1960's for target practice while on a friend's property near Front Royal, VA, I cannot remember for certain. I was much more focused on the Remington 721 .30-06.

I knew this shotgun had been handed down through the family. I guess it wasn't until I did a little research on it, did I realize just how far back in our family history it went. It was, at least, my great grandfather's shotgun from the manufacturing date (as my grandfather was born the year it was made) and possibly my great, great grandfather's. I'm still researching that possibility. Our family had a rather large farm in Hampton Roads, VA after the Civil War and at the turn of the 20th century.


Like the other two long guns (included a Winchester rifle), this one showed a degree of exterior rusting from storage in the basement rafters/floor joists after my dad hid them away sometime in the 2007-2010 timeframe. Prior to that it was either stored on the gun rack in my bedroom, in my (former) bedroom closet or my dad's bedroom closet. I have removed much of the exterior rust on the barrels with a copper penny, a copper brush, and some CLP and/or Kroil. Looking down both bores, they look clean and running the cleaning tools down the bores, they show up clean as well. I don't know what my dad did before he put them up, but the internals look good.

The stock is in really decent shape showing what I would consider normal wear and tear for a shotgun that was evidently well used in the first half of the 20th century. A good amount of dirt came off with the application of a damp rag and wood soap. The knurling on the fore-end shows some wear. There was considerable buildup of oils and dirt in the grooves of the knurled surface and the initial cleaning helped remove some of that buildup. But it also appears as wear from gripping the fore-end. It is the original because, like everything else, it has matching serial numbers engraved in the fore-end.

A few photos of what I started with:


Rusting was confined to the right side of the shotgun (mostly but not exclusively to the barrel)


More barrel rusting. Again, right side only. The left barrel appeared to be rust free.


The shotgun's serial number on the tang / underside of the half-pistol grip. A couple of rust spots visible. The lookup table indicates an 1898 manufacture date. That happens to be the year my grandfather was born. This shotgun was purchased by either my great grandfather or great, great, grandfather. Either way, it has been passed down through our family.


The left side of the breech block. The left side and left barrel of the shotgun seemed to be rust free.

[dieNusse1]

Your B grade '94 entered service in 1898. !894s were offered in grades A through E with the A grade the least expensive. The A grade had no engraving while each ascending grades had increasing degree of engraving and better wood/checkering. The B grade had a bit of engraving while Remington Arms Co. was stamped. C grade and higher all had Remington Arms Co. engraved rather than being stamped.

Too bad your '94 was stored poorly. Appears you have done a good job of stabilizing the damage. If the rust isn't too severe it can be restored to nearly original condition. The Damascus barrels can be reblued and the action body can be restored with a the correct color case hardened finish.

[gsaun039]

Thank you.

Yes, it's too bad about the way my dad stored the guns. In retrospect, it makes me wish that 1) I had checked on them periodically and taken them down to (at least) maintain their clean condition when he put them up, or 2) gone ahead and given them to me since my brother had and has no interest in them. My brother has no "connection" to them like I do (he's younger and he didn't go hunting with them like I did) and from a family heirloom perspective, he's even less interested. I knew that two of these guns were "old" and had been handed down from our grandfather. In the case of this shotgun, it was handed down from my great grandfather to my grandfather to my father and now me.

The year that it was manufactured was the year my grandfather was born. And I know that, at minimum, my great grandfather owned it. It's possible that my great, great grandfather is the original owner of this shotgun and then it was handed down from him. In any case, it has been in the family for its entire history since its original purchase. I have recollections of other (likely) older guns in the house in Hampton Roads, Virginia where my great grandparents lived (and that my grand aunt inherited and owned until her death in the 1990's). I have no idea of what happened to them.

It's interesting to me (as an engineer), that the side of each firearm that was "facing upward" in the small airspace between the basement and the first floor, whether in a case or not, was the side that showed the corrosion/rusting. Since this shotgun wasn't in its case (and we haven't found the case that it had been stored in, so maybe age caught up with the case, too), it showed the worst rusting. However, there is good news as shown in the photos below:

My first steps to removing the rust from the right barrel and the breech area. This upper end was cleaned with CLP and a very light touch with a brass brush.


Encouraged by the progress, I proceeded down the barrel mindful of the light touch required. After spending a bit of time allowing the CLP to penetrate and then to remove the surface rust, I was encouraged by the results. The rust on the box below the barrel was a bit more stubborn.


A look from the muzzle end at the rust removal.

The right barrel and the right side trigger/breech area has cleaned up rather nicely with the combination of a copper brush and CLP, followed by an couple overnight soakings with Kroil and the copper penny and copper brush treatment. Only a little pitting can be seen at the end of the barrel when put under direct light. Easier to see the condition of the barrel when I take it outside under sunlight. I'll post those and a couple of other photos to show the progress. My son was really excited and impressed with how the barrels had cleaned up (he was excited about the Damascus steel barrels. Apparently he's encountered them before. I didn't know he knew about such things).

[gsaun039]

Your B grade '94 entered service in 1898. !894s were offered in grades A through E with the A grade the least expensive. The A grade had no engraving while each ascending grades had increasing degree of engraving and better wood/checkering. The B grade had a bit of engraving while Remington Arms Co. was stamped. C grade and higher all had Remington Arms Co. engraved rather than being stamped.

Too bad your '94 was stored poorly. Appears you have done a good job of stabilizing the damage. If the rust isn't too severe it can be restored to nearly original condition. The Damascus barrels can be reblued and the action body can be restored with a the correct color case hardened finish.

Apparently, the Damascus barrels also came in a two-stripe and three-stripe variety(or maybe more depending upon grade?) with the two-stripe variety made for the A model and the three-stripe (or more?) for the other grades.

I'll have to take a much closer look, but I think this one is a three-stripe variety consistent with the No. 251 Model Number from the 1902 catalog ($65.00). The farm in Hampton must have been doing well (in addition, to fruit trees, the major crops were corn, tobacco, and soybeans).

The checkered fore-end shows some wear as does some of the checkering on half-pistol grip. Some portion of that was dirt and oil from years of handling before it arrived in our house and the amount of dirt and oil that was removed with a soft toothbrush and wood soap was impressive. More knurling appeared after cleaning with soap, but it is also evident that some of what's left is just wear from year of use.

[Researcher]

A shame about your family heirloom being poorly stored. Here is the ejector gun page from the 1898 Remington Arms Co. catalog --

1898 Ejector Guns.jpeg (536.53 KiB) Viewed 7617 times

Remington Arms Co. didn't begin picturing all the various grades in their catalogs until 1902.

That $65 is the "List Price" the gun actually sold retail for a "Net Price" of $50.

While Three-Stripe Damascus barrels were the standard on the B-/BE-Grade guns, apparently the purchaser had some choice. My somewhat earlier BE-Grade has barrels called "Chain J" in the Remington salesman's Damascus sample case.

101315 BE-Grade 12-ga 07.jpg (61.22 KiB) Viewed 7616 times

101315 BE-Grade 12-ga Chain Damascus 08.jpg (208.07 KiB) Viewed 7616 times

[gsaun039]

@Researcher

Thanks for the great information. It gives more clarity to the history of this shotgun.

Great image of those Damascus barrels. Even as a child, I was intrigued by the patterns on the barrels. More stuff I haven't though about in ages.

[gsaun039]

A couple of daylight photos of the Model 1894 that I've been working on.


A top view of the watertable. It's cleaned up quite nicely. Serial number and "B" stamped on the bridge.


The right side barrel shows the rust is gone with some small degree of pitting after removing it with brass and copper brushes, a copper penny, and copper wool.
I wasn't sure the barrel would ever look this good when I first pulled it from the floor joists and saw the rust. Stock shows a nominal amount of wear and tear


Again, some small degree of pitting remains from the rusting of the barrel.


Back inside the house. The pellet count on the rear lug of the barrel [3]29 for the right barrel and [3]32 for the left.

The barrel internals are clean (thankfully)


I'm not done yet. But I am pleased with the progress over the past month.

[dieNusse1]

An update. First, the 29 and 32 stamped on the barrel lug indicate degree of choke. A proofing round of 512 #8 pellets was fired from 40 yds at a 30" circle. A leading 3 was assumed so 329/512=64% and 332/512=65% meaning each barrel is IM.

Second, a BE grade would have ejectors. From what I can see in the pics your '94 has extractors which means it is a B grade rather than BE. The E indicates ejectors.

[gsaun039]

Thanks for the clarification. I know I had seen some reference to spring loaded ejectors. These are not spring loaded and the action of opening the barrels does draw the shells out of the chambers.

When I return home I intend to take an inventory of the shells I have. Some, like Western Express, are no longer produced if I have read that correctly.

Also found the inventory list of valuable items my grandfather made back in 1944. In addition to this shotgun and the Winchester rifle I have mentioned, he included an L.C Smith 16 gauge shotgun on that list. I have no idea of where that went or when. It was never in the collection that I am aware of. But since it’s not part of my dad’s estate, it’s just an interesting tidbit from our family’s past.

[gsaun039]

A short update:

So, from what I've been able to determine, this shotgun was most likely purchased and owned by my great grandfather. My great, great grandfather passed away in 1899 (age 79) and I think was unlikely to have purchased/owned it. They were all farmers back in those days. Tracking family members through the various records I have and others that I can access (like US Census data) has been fascinating.

Reading through Charles Semmer's book Remington Double Shotgunshas been similarly fascinating. Like piecing together one's family tree, there are parts where the pieces of information get stitched together to tell a cogent history.

I have probably removed as much dirt, grease and grime from the knurling in the wood as a I can without causing more damage. Clearly, some of damage to the knurling on the fore-end is from a good deal of usage over the shotgun's early life.

I've come to realize how my dad had his shotgun shells organized in his hunting vests. That was something that I really didn't appreciate when I was 9 or 10 years old and I was learning how to shoot this shotgun.

[dieNusse1]

One further comment. As I recall the cost to add ejectors was $5.00 back then. This equates to about $185 to $200 in 2025 dollars. Seems about right.

[Researcher]

Here is the extractor gun page from the 1898 Remington Arms Co. catalog --

1898 Extractor Guns.jpeg (562.54 KiB) Viewed 1963 times

When the Remington Hammerless double was introduced in the October 1894 Remington Arms Co. catalog --

October 1894 page 5.jpeg (408.39 KiB) Viewed 1963 times

October 1894 page 4.jpeg (455.94 KiB) Viewed 1963 times

ejectors were a whopping $22.50 extra. That remained the price in the November 1895 catalog. By the April 1897 catalog they had dropped to the previously mentioned $5 extra.

[gsaun039]

That's interesting about the cost difference and on the inflation cost side of things, it does sound about right.

From the literature/book that I've looked at, was there a reason to select extractors over ejectors (other than cost)? What I remember from my youth was that the brass base of the shells were pretty hot to the touch of my young fingers immediately after firing unless you pointed the barrels vertical after breaking open the breech so the spent shells would slide out. But it seems that the extractors could be much less of an issue (because of their simplicity) compared to the ejectors with their spring loading.

It's hard for me to remember all the details of handling this shotgun other than the vivid memories of the gun being broken open when we passed through the barbed wire fences of the pastures and handing it across the fence to whoever was walking with us through the fields. This was not the first shotgun I fired, as a family friend and hunting partner let me use and learn with his single-shot, single barrel shotgun (I'm guessing that it was a Winchester Model 37 12-gauge from what I remember of that shotgun) before my dad let me use this Remington Model 1894.

[dieNusse1]

I guess one advantage of ejectors is you don't have to spend time removing fired cases when you're reloading . A second or two might mean the difference between a full or empty game bag. The ejectors will send fired cases right over your shoulder.

I too started with a single barrel 12ga. -- a 36" H&R followed by a Remington 1900 KED. For the first two years or so it seems all I had to do was point the barrels skyward, fire and something would fall down. Perfect fit for me.

[gsaun039]

I too started with a single barrel 12ga. -- a 36" H&R followed by a Remington 1900 KED. For the first two years or so it seems all I had to do was point the barrels skyward, fire and something would fall down. Perfect fit for me.

I just had to chuckle at that!

Not manna from Heaven; game from Heaven!

About two years ago, our house was struck by lightning. It struck a nearby tree and jumped back and forth between two trees before running down a branch and leaping to the rain cap and triple wall flue of our fireplace. It then ran down the metal flue and then out to ground. I was sitting in my recliner chair next to the fireplace when it struck and saw sparks and little whisps of smoke pop out in front of my eyes when it struck. But it was the sound...and in just that instant, it reminded me of the sound of a shotgun blast like the days of hunting on our farm. It was just a momentary memory before I realized I needed to make sure the house was okay. The fire department came and looked in our attic and imaged the walls with their thermal cameras. But when they were there, I described the sound as being just like firing a shotgun. But I digress.

I'm not real sure of the first shotgun I used because it belonged to someone else that we hunted with. He had recently bought a 12-gauge semi-auto shotgun and I remember that he had bought the one he let me use (so it wasn't something passed down through the family like ours was). It was a way for me to become accustomed to firing a 12 gauge shotgun before my dad would let me use the double-barreled one. I also learned an important lesson hunting with him: Be out of the flight path of the ejected shell...not that it hurt so much as it startled me when it hit me in the face.


We've come a long ways. I was commenting to my brother that today's hearing protection beats what we were using back in those days: expended 0.38 caliber shells filled with cotton and put into our ears. At least it was something. But, then again, my dad installed seatbelts in his cars long before they came as standard equipment rather than optional.