Remington 870 sights - bead vs. rifle

[David Armstrong]

I'm thinking about ordering a new 870 barrel and would appreciate our shotgun gurus' input on their preferences on 870 sights - the pedestal bead vs. the express-style rifle sights. I've only used the pedestal bead sight and liked it quite a bit, at any rate more than standard brass beads. Are there any advantages or disadvantages for the rifle sights when shooting different loads?

There is a difference between rifle sights and express sights. I have a pedestal bead on my 870 and express sights on my Beretta 1201. I tried rifle sights on an 870 and didn't like them much. The Beretta came with them and I found the same thing. Ashley Emerson was playing around with the idea of putting his Express Sights on a shotgun, and I got to be the test subject for the first set. I like the express quite a bit, and find it to be a good compromise between speed up close and accuracy at distance.

[GJM]

After messing around extensively with shotgun sighting systems, I would go with a vent rib barrel, as the 870 rifle sight arrangement is very short in sight radius. On the vent rib barrel, I would see how the bead works for your slugs with your eyes. Depending on how that works out, you can replace the bead with an XS small dot, or FO arrangement. More custom is inletting the vent rib with an HD pistol sight, with or without a rear sight. The advantage of a T1, it is easy to adjust POI with slugs, and offers near carbine reach out with slugs, at the expense of slower buckshot performance.

[oldtexan]

A few years ago, I bought a pair of inexpensive bead-sighted 18.5" barreled Rem 870s (25077)from Wal Mart. Prior to that I had not very little work with shotguns. My purpose was to try them as HD weapons after years of using a combination of 16" barreled ARs and various handguns. I am 60 years old, wear progressive lenses, have presbyopia and astigmatism, have shot for five decades, spent 20 years in the Army, and have taken a number of private sector formal handgun training classes, but had never given the shotgun a serious try as a fighting tool.

What I found is that even at distances of only 25 yds, my POIs with various buck loads ( Federal LE 132 00,LE133 00, etc) and with slugs, were consistently off to the left several inches, with both guns. I added ghost ring rear sights and post front sights to both guns. Minor adjustments to the rear sights allowed me to move the POI with both buck and slugs to the centerline. I haven't noticed any loss of speed compared to the bead. With the ghost ring and post, I can stay on an IDPA silhouette with slugs consistently at 75-100 yds. I might have been happy with nothing but a bead if I never shot beyond 15 yds, but I wouldn't have much interest in any gun which would deliver center hits, in my hands, only at such a short distance.

[Peally]

It may not be an option on the 870, but on my M1 I use their standard rifle sights. They're just straight up no frills old school pistol style sights in a super low profile; I colored the front one so it's noticeable and just line it all up for slugs or use the front sight as a half assed bead sight for clays. Best cheapo solution I've come up with so far for a jack-of-all-trades shotgun.

If you're only doing clays a fiber or bead sight will probably work for you, but I use my only shotgun for casual 3-gun, defensive use, and pest control on top of dinking with clay throwers.

[shootist26]

I'm thinking about ordering a new 870 barrel and would appreciate our shotgun gurus' input on their preferences on 870 sights - the pedestal bead vs. the express-style rifle sights. I've only used the pedestal bead sight and liked it quite a bit, at any rate more than standard brass beads. Are there any advantages or disadvantages for the rifle sights when shooting different loads?

I went from standard pedestal bead, to XS big dot tritium bead, to factory Remington rifle sights, to Ameriglo rifle sights.

I like the Ameriglo rifle sights the best by far. They attach to the same mount as the factory Remington rifle sights, but are a traditional 3-dot tritium pistol sight setup. The front sight has a high vis white ring around the tritium. The rear dots are subdued. Same sight picture as my pistols. The high vis white ring on the front sight makes it very fast up close. You can get very good accuracy at distance as well.

[TR675]

Thanks all. The ability to zero slugs, etc. is what sold me; I got a spare barrel with rifle sights.

[coldcase1984]

You can probably get by with a bead if you're only going to be using shot loads, and a bead sight even works OK for slugs out to 50 yards or so. The problem comes when you encounter a bead that isn't mounted quite right for a proper zero with slugs. I've even encountered a few bead sighted SGs that wouldn't even shoot shot loads to POA effectively, but thankfully that is the exception and not the norm.

I'm another fan of tritium XS sights.

Same here.

[Smash]

We have 3 new models this year with Mossberg that I think are pretty cool. Our rail and Ghost Ring sights have always been a popular option but Ghost Rings aren't always the best solution. Since many people like our Express Rifle sights on shotguns such as the Remington 870P, we've applied the same solution with a rail involved.

You still have the option of mounting your Aimpoints or other electro-optics, but now have the option of going with express sights without having something on the rear of the barrel.

The set comes with 3 different height rear sights to allow for changing elevation for your choice of ammo. Each sight slides into the in-rail dovetail and has set screws and comes with loctite.

Excuse the crappy Cell phone pics







I just realized, I think our carpet is trying to be some form of multicam.

[Doug]

I like it.

Probably not a market, but for those that don't like ghost rings, this would be a great option on beretta 1301 tactical.


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