Remington mocel 11 forend configurations

[willmckee]

new to the forum but i can't find an answer anywhere else. i just picked up an M11 12 ga. i've yet to find the date code but based on the serial number of another i had that was very close it would have to be sometime prior to October '29. the gun is not in collectible condition but is mechanically fine and was very cheap. the most puzzling aspect is the forend. by itself it weighs 15 ounces (the gun is 9# even with a 26" polychoked barrel). along bottom dead center the wood is over .40" thick. it's pear shaped in cross-section, no finger grooves and the sides taper from the tangencies on either side towards the barrel. in side view it hangs at least 1/4" below the bottom of the receiver and at the front it has a radius similar to the sportsman, curving up towards the magazine tube cap.

my humble opinion is it's factory. the color is right, the finish is right, the checkering spacing and points are right, the back end has the raised curved rib to engage the curved recess in the receiver front. it also has the holes for the alignment pins tho these are missing.

my first suspicion was that it was a GI forend that had replaced the original but i don't believe that's the case. i was able to look at one of those at the same time and it (like the pics in canfields book on martial shotguns) was a constant radius bottom and straight sides and was much smaller than this one.

i assume remington like every other maker in that era would furnish anything anyone wanted. i also suspected skeet model but can find no evidence of a 5 shot skeet model plus the barrel was born modified/plain (the choke being added later).

i've been told it was home-made by someone who is so good he can tell more from a small grainy photo than i can from holding something in my hands and examining it.

if there's a way to post pics i'd be happy to. anyone ever seen anything like this?

thanks
roger

[Jay Huber]

I think your forearm was made outside of Remington. Jay Huber RSA