The 870 Wingmaster was popular because of the double action bars instead of a single and the ease to interchange barrels and with a machined steel receiver. The next best 12 Guage pump was the Winchester Model 12. Pumps are much more reliable especially for people that do not clean their weapons or get them dirty in the field. Decades of hunting I have witnessed several Rem Model 1100's and Browing Auto 5's jam or fail to extract shells. I have never seen an 870 jam or fail and after 50 years have never had a failure to cycle or fire and mostly with reloads.
As far as the myth about speed, I automatically begin to cycle the chamber as soon as the trigger is pulled. This is so fast that often burnt powder residue flies in my face. Someone that shoots often will cycle an 870 pump as fast as any auto, not that a split second matters when with both weapons you are recovering from recoil to sight again. I find that cycling the round pulls the muzzle down faster with a pump after shooting to get back on the sight picture faster than with an Auto.
I meant to say dual slide bars for the action. Some may misconstrue what I meant by double slide bars. Nearly all pump action shot guns had a single slide bar and the 870 was one o the first to design it with dual slide bars on both sides of the receiver.
I’m not sure I have that level of coordination (to work a pump that fast.) I have a Remington 870 Wingmaster too, and, I dunno. I think I’d have to practice with thousands of rounds to hit even 1/2 the firing rate of a semi-skilled auto user. It sounds like you are essentially saying pump and re-aim in the same motion, and I’ve never been able to make that work. But, again, you’ve probably outshot me by a factor of 1000! ;-)
I do tend to agree about field reliability — there’s just more that can go wrong with an auto, but... this gun isn’t going into the field.
Probably, I should see if I can try out an auto at a range...
There’s an old guy at the gun club that shoots skeet with an 870 pump. Guy is amazingly fast with it. I’ve seen him miss 1 or 2 though. :)
Even in Florida. In the 70s I could carry my .22 anywhere. When traveling upstate on my first motorcycle I had a “Nairobi Hunt Club” rifle on my back that I had got at a flea market while passing through Pinellas. No one ever commented except to ask what that thing was. I still don’t know. I gave it to the woman who was caring for my wife’s grandmother. She was a collector. The caliber was probably smaller than a 22 and the chamber would hold a cartridge bigger than anything I ever saw for a rifle before I saw a .50 demonstrated years later.