Are Remington 1889s safe to shoot?

[LARscout]

For anyone still wondering. All loads performed well, though I am leaning towards the modern smokeless load. I worked up the smokeless charge from 15 to 19grs of universal Clays. I feel no qualms about using factory loaded birdshot anymore. The BP load left a lot to be desired in the velocity department, considering I had to double my hold off on a falling clay. At a minimum of 2 dram per charge, it quickly guzzles a pound of 2f. These old hammerguns are a real hoot to shoot.

[kcw]

For anyone still wondering. All loads performed well, though I am leaning towards the modern smokeless load. I worked up the smokeless charge from 15 to 19grs of universal Clays. I feel no qualms about using factory loaded birdshot anymore. The BP load left a lot to be desired in the velocity department, considering I had to double my hold off on a falling clay. At a minimum of 2 dram per charge, it quickly guzzles a pound of 2f. These old hammerguns are a real hoot to shoot.

Good to hear you've got it running. In you post of 12-22 you talked about trimming the crimp off a plastic hull. That was because you'd determined the gun to have the old 2&5/8" chamber? You now talk of using factory loaded ammo. Do you mean modern 2&3/4" or something like the shorter Polywad offerings? I just had my great grandfather's old Belgian SxS (which I posted about earlier) out last weekend to let my cousin's two grandsons shoot up a box of the factory Polywad ammo in what is their 3X great grandfather's gun. They also then shot up a box modern 1 ounce, three dram Eqv. stuff. which is substantially stiffer than downloaded 2.5" Polywad loads of course. They liked the Polywad better.