Remington's 332: A new gun, a good dog and bob whites - Charley spends a morning in paradise

Guns Magazine, Sept, 2003 by Charles E. Petty

I knew that the bobwhite hustling toward a nearby thicket was going to be lunch long before I touched the trigger. The gun and my eye were as one, and easily moved toward a spot in the sky that bird and shot would occupy at the same time. It was one of those flowing, natural things that happens when the gun handles and fits right. The gun was a prototype of Remington's new over/under shotgun; the model 332. The location was the lovely White Oak Plantation in Tuskegee, Ala.

You know it's going to be a good day when the very first shot ever out of a new gun does what I just described and the second barrel does the same thing. It only gets better when, after a few more of those, the guide gives you a big grin, "you's done this before ain'tcha?" But the crowning glory is when the pointer turns around and gives an approving look and tail wag before he trots off to pick up another bird. If hunting gets better than that I've never heard of it.

I've been hunting bobwhite quail since my grandaddy took me with him at age 10. A few years later I got to carry a gun and today -- half a century later -- I will still go anywhere for a chance to hunt nature's most wonderful game bird.

The Feel Of History

The way a shotgun feels is one of those instantaneous things. You don't have to debate or get a second opinion, you just know. And that sort of stuff ain't easy for a gunmaker to accomplish. History is the best teacher and Remington has actually made quite a few over/unders since 1931. There is a substantial legion of shotgunners who believe that their first, the Model 32, was the best over/under ever made. Today they command top dollar from competitive shooters in all the shotgun sports even though they haven't been made since 1947.

Next was an updated version called the Model 3200 that was made for 10 years from 1973 to 1983. Most would say that both the 32 and 3200 fell victim to a combination of rising cost and relatively small demand. One reason for that was their relatively hefty weight which largely limited them to clay target shooting rather than the hunting field. In those days, unless you sold many thousands of a model it wasn't always profitable to manufacture. That was especially true of guns like these because of the extensive hand fitting they required.

Another 10 years went by before Remington began an odyssey with the over/under that led to three different models between 1993 and 2000. They were the Peerless, Model 396 and Ideal 300. I got to use all three and while none were bad, they didn't sing to me either.

The public must have felt the same way for they were short lived and the combined sales of all three didn't come close to the over 42,000 model 3200s sold in it's 10 year life.

The new 332 I shot that wonderful day was stocked in the Remington Custom Shop and had a stock that had been faithfully copied from the 32. Quite literally they took an old gun and duplicated it.

In The Game To Stay

Some time has passed since that first trip and the 332 is now a production gun. But at the Remington writer's conference last October when the formal announcement was made I was taken aback when Remington's executives admitted that the last three models had been flops. Someone might well have asked, "why bother?" So I did and Remington's president Tommy Millner was candid in his reply. "If someone wants an over/under shotgun we want them to have the opportunity to buy a Remington."

In today's bottom line driven businesses products sometimes do not get a chance to become profitable before they go away, but Millner expressed a strong commitment to give this one a chance. "We know it isn't going to be profitable right away but we're in this for the long haul," he said. VP Jay Bunting followed up, "Being in the break action business is strategically important to Remington in the long term. It makes us a more complete company."

If I had to characterize the Model 332 I would use words like "versatile" and "utilitarian." The production model, which is competitively priced, will do a lot of things well. I've used it for skeet, sporting clays and quail hunting and with the exception of swapping a few Remchoke tubes there has been no need to mess with it.

The "utilitarian" label has two sides. The stock is nice, but plain, American walnut and the metal finish is a matte blue. Yes, both of these help keep costs down but they also make the 332 a shotgun you needn't be afraid to actually use for fear of scratching the stock or metal.

There is a definite effort to make the 332 look like the 32 down to identical gun dog engraving on both sides of the receiver. The action is a modified box lock with a typical monobloc for the barrels. The vent rib has the classy two-bead sight pattern. The single selective mechanical trigger has a selector that is a movable segment of the safety. This looks a bit different at first but works well. The 332 has 3-inch chambers and auto ejectors that are both positive and forceful. Empties fly nicely. With a gun of this type it's almost silly to even bother to mention that there were no malfunctions.