SuperMag Battle: Remington NitroMag vs. Benelli SuperNova

Somewhere in the neighborhood of 1988, the last "new" production shotshell cartridge of any note was introduced by Federal Cartridge Company: the 31⁄2-inch 12 gauge. It was the Mossberg 835 slide-action that helped launch it, and it was the proliferation of the long shell that sealed the demise of the 10-gauge shotgun, as you can actually get more performance out of a 12-gauge 31⁄2-inch load,

Below left: We had a lot of problems with the new-for-2009 Remington M887, some of which are shown here. On the gun, the left arrow points to a smallish button safety that was hard to get to, our testers said. The right arrow points to a piece of sheet metal (at the back of the bolt with the large horizontal slot in it) which rattled. Center arrow: We did like the generous slide release at the front of the trigger guard. The target at left shows a pattern from the Remington M887 that reveals a significant point-of-impact problem: the 887 shot well below point of aim, even at 20 yards. The red dot shows the approximate center of the pattern.