Range Report
I was able to locate a source of original Remington replacement parts and decided to give it an overhaul before shooting it. An internet acquaintance of mine had bought out a Remington armorer many years ago and he still had some of the parts I needed. I kept the old ones for back-ups.
I replaced several springs (recoil, action, FP, magazine, carrier, and extractor); the friction spring assembly and ring, and some buggered screws. The recoil buffer and rivot were in good condition so I left those alone, but have a spare just in case.
I headed off to a local indoor range with some Winchester 00 buck and 1600 FPS slugs. The recoil setting was placed on "heavy." I had treated the magazine tube's exterior with Rem-Oil in the beginning of November but by yeaterday, it had evaporated away and was dry.
The gun worked pretty well with the full-power stuff and seemed like almost shooting a 20 ga. A friend offered about 10 rounds of reduced-recoil tactical buck but it would not eject empty shells. After about 30 rounds we set the gun aside to cool and shoot some other guns. We came back to the Model 11about a half hour later and it was completely cooled off. When I loaded it up with the full-power Winchester 00 buck, it would not eject empty shells. I placed just a few drops of FP-10 on the mag tube, right at the friction spring assembly and the gun was up and running perfectly for the rest of the session. We shot about 50 more round of Winchester 00 buck and slugs without a single malfunction. As a test, we let it cool down once more to try to duplicate the previous ejection problem, but the gun continued working perfectly.
I did notice a slight increase in recoil after I added the oil, but that makes sense since the friction ring would loose some of it's "bite" in the oil. It wasn't brutal, but it did increase felt recoil a little. It's still much nicer to shoot than an 870, as the long-recoil system seems to soak up quite a bit of felt recoil. Keep in mind we were shooting full power buck and slugs and the gun only has a hard (factory) buttplate.
I had read on another forum that the Model 11/Auto 5 mag tube is to be left bone dry. The Rem-Oil on it had evaporated, hopefully leaving behind a little Teflon. That seemed to work for a while, but eventually led to problems. I'll make sure to keep a light coating of FP-10 on the tube from here on out.
The gun has what I believe to be a cyl. choke and an 18" barrel. At 60 feet, the gun consistantly grouped Winchester 9-pellet oo buck inside the torso of a man-sized target. It grouped about the size of the head at 40 feet out. POI for the slugs was about 6" high at 60 feet.
Overall I really like the gun and it will easily find a place on my "never sell" list.