“I need your clothes, your boots, and your motorcycle.” The Terminator got what he asked for, as well as a Winchester lever-action shotgun the barkeep kept for rowdy customers. The Terminator made the 1887 famous once more, and Cimarron cashed in on the film by calling their newest lever-action shotgun the 1887 Terminator. To be fair, it’s not a sawn-off, pistol grip-only gun. It’s a fully stocked shotgun with a 20-inch barrel, but it’s still pretty sweet!
I’m a big shotgun fan. I like all shotguns—big and small, singles, doubles, pumps, and automatics. Of all the shotguns I’ve owned and fired, I have never had a chance to experience a Winchester 1887 or even a clone of one. I remember looking at a Chinese clone years ago but sadly passed it up. I looked at replicas from Cimarron and Uberti, but their price points were too high for me to justify.
When Cimarron announced the Terminator with its MSRP below $700 and street price of about $580, I was excited to get my hands on one. The 1887 Terminator also comes from a company I trust. Cimarron imported these guns from China, but with their backing, I felt a bit more confident in the gun. Cimarron sent this test for review, and I’ve been beating the hell out of it. That said, let’s get into it a bit.
Breaking Down the 1887 Terminator
The gun remains pleasantly faithful to the original 1887 shotguns. Unlike the old 12-gauge 1887s, the Cimarron version is designed for smokeless powder 2.75-inch shells. Other than that, they are faithful reproductions, complete with the downsides and oddities of the design. It’s worth remembering these were the first successful repeating shotguns. There was little from which John Browning could draw inspiration.
The 1887 Terminator series features wood furniture furniture for the stock and handguard. It’s chunky wood that looks nice for a Chinese import. The matte black finish wouldn’t be mistaken for a blued design, but at less than $600, I won’t complain. Both the wood and metal finish seem nice and strong.
The lever action is smoothish. It feels a little janky as it moves back and forth, a symptom of having to cycle such thick and long rounds. This model’s barrel is 20 inches, and a 22-inch and 28-inch version is on the horizon. Personally, I prefer the shorter 20-inch gun.
The gun can only chamber 2.75-inch rounds, holding five in the magazine tube and one in the pipe. Although you can technically ‘ghost load’ a seventh round, it’d be ill-advised for safety reasons.
The Oddity of the 1887
John Browning created the gun for Winchester, but it’s worth mentioning that he didn’t really want to. He wanted to create a slide-action shotgun, which he later did with the 1893 and 1897. However, Winchester was known for its top-tier lever-action rifles. They had a brand, so to speak, and wanted to maintain it. Browning went to work on the lever-action gun as a good company man and created the first successful repeating shotgun on the market.
The 1887 is a rolling block repeater, which is a fairly novel idea. The rolling block was a proven design, but it was usually a single-shot weapon. The tube-fed design was typical on lever-action rifles and worked so well with shotguns that it’s still the dominant shotgun magazine type.
To make the system work, we have a unique manual of arms that is unique to shotguns and lever-action rifles. To load the magazine, the user has to open the action mostly. If you go all the way, the shell lifter gets in the way. With the action mostly open, you get two loading options: the chamber and the magazine tube.
The magazine tube is the lower option, so you have to reach past the chamber and into the gun and shove the cartridges into the magazine tube. It’s a bit awkward, and its design prevents you from toping the gun off easily as you shoot. However, in 1887, the gun held three times the ammo of the standard double barrel, so reloading likely wasn’t a big concern.
There is no safety, just a hammer with three positions. It goes to full-cock, half-cock, and no-cock. The half-cock position is the ‘safe’ position for carrying with a loaded chamber. As such, it’s not a gun I’d use for home defense or keep the chamber loaded for modern use.
Playing Cowboy With the Cimarron 1887 Terminator
You can tell which companies shoot their guns and which are fine with the status quo. As soon as I shouldered the 1887, I realized Cimarron was the former. The gun’s length of pull measures out to just over 13 inches. It’s accessible and easy to shoulder for most shooters. I imagine a lever-action design with a long length of pull would be a hassle.
At 7.8 pounds, you can feel the weight of the thick wood stock and all-metal design. Weight isn’t a bad thing with a shotgun, and 7.8 pounds isn’t a bad weight, especially considering that the gun was designed in 1887. The Cimarron 1887 Terminator feels solid, but how does it shoot?
At first, it was rough out of the box. The cheapest bird shot with low brass and folded crimps gummed the action up. When you tried to work the action, it was stiff enough that it required me to break my firing position to open the action. It took some real force to get the gun to cycle. A higher brass buckshot round with a rolled crimp proved to be smooth shooting.
I was a bit concerned about the stiff action, but it seemed like the gun needed to break in a bit. After a couple of hundred rounds, it cycled smoothly with the cheaper ammo types. I’ve not heard of a break-in period with a manually operated gun, but the Cimarron 1877 Terminator needs one. To be completely fair, the gun was always reliable. It just was challenging to cycle.
Throwing Lead
I cycled plenty of birdshot and buckshot through the gun. I shot the cheap stuff primarily, including Monarch buckshot, some Sterling, and a few Fiocchi loads. Everything fired and choked its way in and out of the gun. Patterns with basic buckshot were fair.
We saw 7 to 8 inches at 15 yards. I mixed old and new by shooting some Flitecontrol from a gun designed in 1887. The cylinder choke created a pattern that looked more like a slug than a load of buckshot. At 50 yards, I could ding steel over and over.
The gun does have one small accuracy problem. The bead sits directly on the barrel, creating an effect where buckshot and slugs appear to hit high. You have to aim a bit low to compensate for it. With buckshot, I aimed five inches low and landed buckshot center mass. With slugs, I aimed at the bottom of the belly button of the target to land chest shots. It’s accurate to the Winchester 1887, but still worth mentioning.
I also grabbed some mini shells. They work okay. In a tube of seven rounds, at least one will fail. The two-inch shells ran a bit better, and the 2.25-inch shells ran perfectly. I don’t recommend mini shells for serious work, but they run mostly okay in the Cimarron 1887 Terminator and tune-down recoil.
Going Fast
There is no recoil pad, and the front forend lacks enough grip texture to initiate a decent push/pull. It’s not so punishing that I gave up shooting. I am okay with recoil, but it isn’t the gun for you if you are recoil-sensitive.
I tried a few standard shotgun drills. From the low ready, I mounted the gun and fired two rounds of buckshot as fast as possible on a ten-inch gong. I can do that with a standard pump action in under 1.5 seconds. I did it in one second a few times in the past. With the 1887, I got 1.85 seconds for two shots at most. The lever action just isn’t as intuitive as a pump action.
I also tried port loading. It’s fairly easy. The 1887’s open-top nature allows you to toss a single round in the chamber very quickly. The hardest part is not closing the action after you open it; it becomes a part of muscle memory.
Blasting Away
The Cimarron 1887 Terminator would be a great choice for SASS, ya know, the Single Action Shooting Society. It’s SASS legal, and that’s where it excels. The Cimarron 1887 Terminator is affordable if you prefer this gun to the typical double barrel. It could be used for pest control, as well as small game and predator hunting. It wouldn’t be my choice for deer with the hammer-fired design and loud click required to move from half cock to full cock.
Ultimately, it’s a fun gun for me. It’s an experience your typical pump gun doesn’t deliver. Cimarron has made owning an 1887 affordable and provided a reliable, fun-to-shoot shotgun.
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