I have had both and one of my relatives brought a guy from Remington to our hunting camp a long time ago. His name was Richard E Perkins. You might recognize his work, he was the person that proof tested the barrels at one time for Remington - you can see his mark on the side of all Remington barrels (REP)
The model 1100 had a couple of flaws.
The 2 3/4 model would not accept Magnum 3 inch shells and the 3 inch magnum model did not like to shoot 2 3/4 inch shells.
It cost Remington more money to make the Model 1100 then what it sold for. They were actually loosing money.
Basically what happened was that they quit making the Model 1100 for a period of time starting in 1986.
They then figured out a way to cheapen the Model 1100 in all aspects. Everything from the RKW High Gloss stocks to the finish on the action and barrel. They then designed the model 11-87 to shoot all shells equally well and put them on the market. Their opinion was - either you buy it or you don't. They really didn't care if they sold or not.
You have to understand that at one time Dupont was the principal owner of Remington and that was where the RKW finish came from. When Dupont got out of the gun business, Remington almost went out of business and they were bleeding money for a period of time until they figured out how to capitalize on the name and not on the product.
The same problems occured with the Remington Game Master 760 which was discontinued and the Model 6 came out in 1982. It flopped because people couldn't take the name change. So they changed the name a second time around 1986 to a model 7600 and the guns started to sell again, even though the finish and the quality was poor at best. In Remington's own words - accuracy of 3 to 4 inches for 5 shots at 100 yards is acceptable in a 30-06 with factory loads..
When all this happened, the value of used Model 1100's went sky high because the Skeet Models were used by many successful shooters for competition and it took a long time to wear one out, but eventually they did.
11-87 simply means that it is a derivative of the model 1100 - which was designed in 1987. The 11-87 is actually a better gun then the model 1100. Just that Remington couldn't get it through their heads that nobody would want to buy one if it was butt ugly.
When sales were lost and the shooters were screaming for the 1100 loud enough, they brought it back on a trial basis.
I know all this because at one time, I was a pretty good customer at Grice Gun Shop and Grice Wholesale probably buys half of the production runs in any one year of most all production guns made by Remington. Most of the Remington guns you see in stores - minus Walmart and Dicks Sporting goods / Cabella's etc - comes from Grice Wholesale.
