We have to be honest, even though we try not to pre-judge a gun before a review, we didn't have high expectations for the Remington V3. As you may know, Remington filed for bankruptcy a few years back. The manufacturing of Remington firearms was taken over by a company called Rem Arms. Not sure about you, but when a company goes bankrupt and another company starts to manufacture, it doesn't exactly breed confidence. But, over the course of reviewing the Remington V3, we sure changed any preconceived notions we had. 

If you have experience with the Remington V3 Waterfowl Pro Shotguns please let us know on the TFL COMMUNITY!   

The V3 comes with a lot of unique and modern features. It's more tailored towards waterfowl hunting but could certainly be a great all-around gun too. Remington says that this gun is super soft shooting, extremely reliable, and made in the USA! Bonus points right off the bat for that!

Remington V3 Waterfowl Pro in 12 GAUGE

• Specs

  • 12-gauge
  •  Gas System (known as the versa-port system)
  • MSRP: $1,139 
  • 3-inch chamber
  • The length of pull is 14" 
  • Drop at comb is 1.5 inches
  • Drop at heel is 2 7/16 inches - Drop and cast shims are available
  • This shotgun comes with 3 extended chokes (Rem choke system)
  • 28" barrel 
  • 7lbs 8oz
  • The average pull weight of this trigger was around 5 lbs. Very happy with this!

• Ergonomics

  • The first thing we noticed is that the grip is actually on the smaller side. The size and grip angle were a bit tight for Steve's hands.
  • The forearm grip is not small at all - it's quite beefy actually. It does have nice grooves however to set your fingers in comfortably. We like the tacky feel that these grip points have throughout the shotgun.
  • Standard polymer stock and furniture. This V3 has a dipped waterfowl camo finish with a bronze Cerekote finish on the receiver and barrel.
  • The flat rib has a brass mid-bead and a fiber that you can swap between red, green, or white. We chose white of course to minimize distraction.
  • Receiver is drilled and tapped.
  • All of the control surfaces are nicely oversized (bolt handle, bolt release, safety).
  • The loading port is generously sized, and is milled out. The mag tube also has a bright orange follower to signal that the gun is empty.
  • Loading this gun was a breeze.
  • Another upgrade is the V3's buttpad. Instead of rubber, it's a very squishy foam pad. Not as nice as upgrading to a FalconStrike but it is better than most standard pads.
  • Comes with swivel studs for a sling.
  • The V3 is a bit forward-heavy due to the fancy gas system under the hood that we'll look at in a minute. We'd take a forward-heavy gun in the duck blind as it creates a smoother swing.

• Recoil and Reliability

  • Our first shots with 1 1/8 ounce target loads were straight back into the shoulder with no issues - we have pretty high hopes for this gun.
  • This gun cycled pretty much everything. It even worked from the hip and over the head.
  • We love this 3-inch chamber. In our opinion, you don't need anything bigger than that. This paired with the V3's gas system resulted in flawless and fast shooting.
  • If you can speak to the reliability of the Remington V3 please let us know how it's held up on the  TFL COMMUNITY!    

• Breakdown/Quality of Build

  • While breaking this shotgun down, we first decided that the forend cap wasn't our favorite design. This is a really small preference. However, once we got under the cap, the circular piece inside that sits under the cap appeared to be a rather cheap plastic. Also, note that this shotgun comes apart a bit differently than most other gas guns. This isn't your traditional gas shotgun.
  • Instead of a single gas port that slides around the mag tube, this versa-port system has 2 smaller ports that are attached to the barrel. The ports send 2 parallel rods rearward to engage the cycle process. Most gas guns will have one rod that sits behind the gas port separately. This process is contained into one unit in the V3. 
  • Because of this one-unit design, to reassemble the shotgun you must feed 2 long, skinny springs into the reciever, then feed the 2 piston rods into those springs. We will include images below to give you a better idea of what these goofy elements look like. 
  • Mind you, this is our first time taking apart this gun. With some practice, we're sure it's not that bad. but for our first time, sliding the bolt back in while keeping pressure on the 2 rods and springs was quite difficult. Those gas rods like to slip out of their channel if you're not carful.  
  • Once you get the rods, springs, and bolt figured out, the gun is actually super easy to put back together because the whole piston is housed tightly on the barrel. The only concern we had was that cleaning effectively may be more difficult due to the compact fashion in which this gas piston was made. But so far, no issues!

• Speed Shooting

  • Although you won't be trying to shoot down 3 birds as fast as possible, we like to see how fast we can get on target with every gun we review. This sheds light on the overall functionality of the shotgun, testing how well it instinctively mounts, how reactive the trigger is, and how the gun feels overall. 
  • Before we got into the speed test, we warmed up with some simple shooting off of the machine. This thing can crush. It swung really smoothly and mounted very naturally. 
  • It was also very soft shooting as Rem Arms claimed. We definitely think all of these design elements will come together for some super fast-speed shooting. 
  • Our very first score while shooting 3 hand-thrown clays on the clock was a 1.17... that is a wicked fast first attempt. Our next attempt gave us splits (time between shots) of .17 and .17! 
  • The fastest time was either our first attempt (1.17) or a later attempt that was 1.20 - We weren't able to determine whether or not Steve was early to throw on the 1.17. However, we know we can get record speeds with this gun. We became more interested in how fast we could get our splits without having to focus on hitting clays. Our fastest consistent split was a .16. That's wild!

In conclusion, this Remington V3 Waterfowl Pro is one of the fastest guns semi-auto shotguns we've reviewed. It's built well, the ergonomics are great, the trigger is light and responsive, and it swings really nicely. Whatever this quirky gas system is doing to make it shoot so soft and fast is amazing. But, it is indeed quirky. It's kind of a double-edged sword because this gun performs so flawlessly. The price you have to pay is figuring out how to disassemble and clean this Remington's intricate gas system. But after shooting this gun, that's a small price to pay for all the positives we've experienced with this gun so far. We'd also comment on the pistol grip size - it is a bit smaller than what we are used to but definitely manageable. We'll definitely be putting a FalconStrike recoil pad on to help get the length of the pull fitting a bit better. If you've done your research and have determined that this gun would work for YOU, then go for it. It's a fantastic gun - plain and simple!  

Whether our targets in the field or our targets in life, we will only hit what we are focused on, so live the #targetfocusedlife 

Stay Target Focused,

Steve