Top Selling Guns | April 2023

2020 was a tough year for a lot of reasons, but it was particularly hard on fans of Remington Firearms. Remington was founded in 1816 by Eliphalet Remington and was America’s oldest gun company, but lawsuits, bankruptcy, and mismanagement by various owners left the brand insolvent 204 years later. It seemed Big Green’s glory days were behind. 

But many gun owners are loyal to their brand, and that shows in this month’s GunBroker.com Top Selling Report, presented by GunGenius.com. The Remington 700 was the number one selling used bolt-action rifle for April 2023, and it also held the top position in bolt-action sales in February. But it wasn’t just used rifle sales where Remington had a strong showing: the Model 700 was the second-best-selling new bolt-action rifle on Gun Broker in April 2023, down three spots from March.

That’s good news for Rem Arms (the new owner of Remington’s firearms division), and it’s good news for Remington fans. And, quite honestly, it’s not surprising. The Remington 700 has been a huge hit since it was introduced in 1962. The Model 700 was revolutionary in many ways. First, it utilized a cylindrical action which was simpler and less expensive to build than Mauser or Winchester Model 70 actions of the time. The Remington ditched the full-length claw extractor in favor of a smaller, simpler, and less expensive C-clip extractor with “plunger”-type ejector. Remington rifles were less expensive than Winchester’s Model 70, but they were well-manufactured and precise enough to offer exceptional accuracy.

The ”better accuracy at a more affordable price” prompted a lot of hunters to switch to the 700, and it also prompted Winchester to ditch their own CRF action in favor of a similar push-feed design in 1964 (much to the chagrin of Winchester fans at the time). But the 700’s accuracy and affordability also caught the attention of the military, and the Model 700 would later serve as the basis for the M24 and M40 sniper rifles.

From 1962 until the early 2000s over five million Remington 700 rifles were sold, making it the most popular hunting rifle for generations of hunters. But issues with the original “Walker” trigger and multiple reports that Model 700s would fire without pulling the trigger led Remington to replace the Walker design with the X-Mark pro trigger in 2007. A class-action lawsuit was filed against Remington over the trigger design.

Interestingly, the Remington 700 has spawned more clones than most any other bolt-action rifle. Push-feed, dual-lug rifles with cylindrical actions like the Howa 1500 began to compete with the Model 700, and today many modern competition and hunting rifles utilize actions that are similar in overall design to the 700.

It would seem, then, that when shooters started sensing Remington’s demise that they would simply turn to other, similar rifle designs. And while that has certainly happened, Remington has managed to hang on to its loyal fans.

Not Just Rifles

If Remington’s 700 manages to hold out in the top two in new and used sales for months and years to come it will certainly be an astounding story of redemption and brand loyalty. But The Model 700 was hardly the only noteworthy Remington design, and Remington doesn’t just lead the way in rifle sales. The April sales report from gunbroker.com shows Remington very well represented in the new and used shotgun market as well. The Remington Model 870 is the second-best-selling pump shotgun this month (behind the Mossberg 590), a position that it held last month as well. The Model 870 was introduced in 1950 and was an immediate success, due in large part to the robust yet affordable design. It was less expensive and easier to disassemble than the Winchester Model 12, and this cut deeply into Winchester’s sales. The 870 was a smooth-handling, elegant gun that survived thousands of rounds and it became very popular with wingshooters as well as competitive trap shooters. It was also used by militaries and law enforcement agencies, and by 2009 Remington was rolling out their 10 millionth 870. I’ve shot a handful of 870s including 12- and 20-gauge Wingmasters, a 12-gauge Classic Trap, and a svelte 28-gauge Wingmaster with a 25-inch barrel that I regret not buying when I had the opportunity. The 870 is back in production, and if it continues to sell well who knows how many millions more 870 might eventually be sold.

Remington also owns a sizable share of this month’s used shotgun sales as well. The 870 was the best-selling used pump shotgun, the Remington 1100 was the best-selling used semiauto shotgun, and the Remington 11-87 was the third-best-selling used semiauto for April. The Model 1100 was released in 1963 on the heels of the Remington 700 rifle, and like the 700 the 1100 quickly became a gamefield classic. It utilized a gas-operated action instead of the long recoil-operated design popularized with guns like the Browning Auto-5 and Franchi’s AL-48. The 1100 was (and is) a soft-shooting reliable semiauto that’s perfect for the field or range. While shooting in college my over/went down at a skeet competition at Purdue University, and one of the Purdue shooters was kind enough to let me borrow one of the school’s 1100 semiautos. I shot as well with that gun as my broken-down stackbarrel, and I became an 1100 fan for life. Since over four million were sold, I’m clearly not the only one.

The 1100 is a great gun, but it didn’t have a system that could compensate for both light and magnum loads. That’s when the 11-87 arrived. With its gas-compensated barrel, the 11-87 could fire both light and magnum loads without the barrel change that the 1100 required.

Is Remington Back?

I’m one of the millions of Remington fans rooting for the company to rise up from the mismanagement sins of the past. Clearly, there are plenty of buyers who simply want to own a quality Remington firearm, and that puts pressure on Rem Arms to produce a product that is worthy to bear the name.

Top Selling Guns Sold in April 2023

Source: gungenius.com/top-selling/

To learn more or shop for any of the guns listed, visit Gun Genius at www.gungenius.com/top-selling.

Editor's note: In the report, guns are rated from one to five within each category, with the number one gun being the most popular that month. The numbers are color-coded to show any changes in the ranks from the previous report.

Black = Steady
Green = Up
Red = Down

Source: gungenius.com/top-selling/

To learn more or shop for any of the guns listed, visit Gun Genius at www.gungenius.com/top-selling.

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