Remington Versamax a honest review

[fenboy]

Well I thought I would give anyone interested in a Remington versamax a bit of a review.

 

I brought mine a few weeks ago from a forum member after deciding my wood stocked Beretta 391 would most probably get ruined out on the marsh as I have decided to try my hand at wildfowling this year , add to that the fact I wanted a 3.5" chamber and the Beretta was not high performance steel rated it had to go despite it being the other love of my life

 

So my new gun had a lot to live up to .

My very first impression when picking the Versamax up was jesus that's heavy , it comes in just short of 8lLB, but I guess that weight will be of benefit when sticking heavy loads up the spout.

 

Despite the weight the balance is good , I did find the forend rather large compared to the beretta but have soon got use to it .

 

The gun comes with shims to alter cast and drop as well as some spacers to increase the pull by up to 1 1/2 ".

I just took the gun out the back of the house shot two flighting pigeon with two shots and decided the gun fits fine as it is so I will leave it as it came in the box.

if required the changing of cast and drop is a very simple DIY affair unlike the Beretta

 

As well as the shims/ spacers the gun also comes with a trigger lock , and a allen key for removal of the gas pistons and stock bolt and 8 different colored front beads of different colours and sizes as well as a tool to change them.

 

So how does it perform , well for starters it is a very soft shooting auto , certainly softer than my non kickoff Beretta, it has an excellent recoil pad and a soft comb insert which incidentally can be popped out and changed for higher ones if required ( at additional cost)

 

I have now put around 500 shells through it ranging from 28 gram to 32 gram with no jams or miss feeds so far , it is also notable that it seems to shoot much cleaner than the Beretta and the gas pistons are much easier to clean.

 

I do have a couple of negatives firstly the trigger pull is way too high , I gave the sears a polish and this has improved it a little but it is still poor compared to the beretta .

 

The end cap is a very agricultural affair , a tractor compared to the berettas rolls royce in fact , it sounds like your mincing bones as you tighten it down and it also works itself loose after a few shots.

 

It has a large safety catch button which is excellent , but a tiny bolt release button which could do with being bigger.

Lastly I miss being able to unload shells straight from the magazine like with the beretta , instead I now have to cycle them through the action chucking them on the ground as I do so.