Formerly known as xpd54.
The opinions expressed in this post are my own and do not reflect the opinions or policies of my employer.
www.gunsnobbery.wordpress.com
Hmmm...
That would be a seriously bad move with regard to interchangeability across various 870 eras.
WRT the Wilson/Scattergun followers, I have seen some that were getting along in years and had started to distort a bit; maybe the material degrades over time or various oils/cleaners attack them. I consider it something worth checking now and then- it's cheap insurance.
Last edited by gato naranja; 12-31-2021 at 08:03 AM.
gn
"On the internet, nobody knows if you are a dog... or even a cat."
After learning that the Remington Model 11 was equipped with a steel magazine follower, I replaced my plastic followers with steel followers, originally Model 11 parts and later the Vang Comp part sold by Brownells at https://www.brownells.com/shotgun-pa...prod22732.aspx .
The three reported negatives with metal followers are 1) can corrode, 2) can stick on two-piece magazine tubes or extensions, and 3) can batter the receiver when the last round is fired. My experience is 1) maintenance and/or a good coating solve this, 2) not experienced this yet but none of my guns have dimples in the magazine tube, and 3) I would need to fire a lot of rounds to batter the receiver. I have coated the followers with orange Rust-Oleum left over from spraying my metal targets or NP3 with no issues. I need to try Cerakote on the next build, but the Rust-Oleum has been the easy button for this.
Guys, I must apologize for the Russian Disinformation I just put out! When I got the tac-14 several months ago, that Wilson/SGT +1 absolutely would not thread onto the tube... I went to Wilson's site and misinterpreted this line with a hasty reading:
"Follower is not grooved to fit newer 870 magazine tubes. The detent in the magazine tube may be filed down for follower fitting."
I focused on 'not grooved to fit newer magazine tubes' (OF COURSE the detent has to be swaged), went in search of an extension marketed for the tac-14, bought the Briley, and it worked -- thus, I figured the threads had changed with the 'newer' mag tubes.
Well, I just revisited the issue, and now the bloody Wilson threads on without a fuss. I'm baffled. I swear I wasn't drinking when I tried it before!
Anyway...comparing the two just now, the Briley does actually work better for two reasons: the knurling on the end (rather than on the coupling) makes it easier to grab and tighten, and it allows for just a bit more spring compression, making the 5th round load more smoothly.
A shotgun that had rusted away in an outbuilding gave me another lesson - as if I needed one - in corrosion being a dandy binding agent. The steel magazine follower in the mag tube had to be persuaded rather smartly to budge. I remember as a kid seeing sheet-steel "cup" followers that low/no maintenance owners would allow to get a bit crusty... then things would get a little slow.* Heaven forbid anyone ever maintain the inside of the magazine tube, the follower and the spring! For some reason, I seem to remember the receivers battering the follower rather than the other way around, but I may be mistaken on that point.
Anyway, while cultivating OCD on my 870 project(s), I amassed quite a collection of magazine extensions and followers, and found that the vast majority of them would work, but not all of those would necessarily stand a whole lot of guff. In time, I just standardized on the Scattergun (Wilson) follower. At some point in time, I probably had over a half dozen of the green things laying loose around the place, and at least two of them developed a slight "bend" of the tail (another one started to sort of crumble/disintegrate, but to be fair, I exposed that one to a pretty nasty cleaning agent from work). One mod I did make on them may have been unnecessary but was cheap insurance: I slightly radiused the sharp rear edge of the larger-diameter portion to make sure it did not hang up on any annular joint caused by a given magazine extension.
Eventually, I got S&J Hardware orange type 1 delrin followers for all the 870s and was quite happy with their performance/durability; I believe the type 1 could get hammered through the side of my house and still work.
For no reasons other than:
1. I pick up the color better
2. it could be a bit more easily distinguished from a shell by feel,
the only remaining 870 here wound up with an S&J Hardware safety green type 2 delrin follower, with which I am now perfectly content.
*"A Brillo pad will fix that right up," said the proud owner.
gn
"On the internet, nobody knows if you are a dog... or even a cat."
I just got the same lesson with a Lodge cast iron charcoal camp grill used very sporadically in the last fifteen years. Left it in the outbuilding only to discover before the move that I have some orange rust on a portion of the cooking surface. So far I have just stopped the damage by using CLP as we are still in the pack/unpack part of our move. It looks like I will need something a bit more aggressive to resurface the grill.