mine you just had to put the barrel on it...but when i got it back from remington after they "fixed" it, it came in a long box that was ready to fire (jam)....whatever they did to it, made it 10x worse...instead of jamming up every 10 or so rounds, it jammed after every round...had to eventually hold the pump and slam the butt against the ground to get it to eject shells, and then a few shells later it was jammed enough that nothing i did was getting it apart aside from taking the gun apart....i only put like 20rds through it after i got it back from remington before it was in-op i heard the older guns are better quality... lots of problems with the new ones after a quick google search....i found the same to be true with the mossbergs....the old ones my girls dad and bro have are nice and solid, but the new ones at gander felt kinda shitty and everything was loose and rattled the nova came assembled because i bought the display model, but if you take the barrel off it fits in that box..barely lol