New production 870 Express

[Lon]

OP have your department's range weeks concluded yet? I hope that everything worked out well, and that y'all are confident with the new shotguns going forward.

We are done. The new ones ran great. ZERO issues with them. Had a total of 2 old 870s that broke ejectors. Gonna send them to Ahlman’s up in MN to fix them.

[MandoWookie]

Wondering when factory barrels and parts will start showing up again.

Would be nice to see a Rem choke, 18 in, 20 ga barrel with rifle sights available, though I dont think that was ever a factory option.

[gato naranja]

Would be nice to see a Rem choke, 18 in, 20 ga barrel with rifle sights available, though I dont think that was ever a factory option.

It would also be nice to see a Rem choke, 18 in, 12 ga barrel with rifle sights available too. To get one, I had to have RAS thread an 870P RS barrel for Rem-Chokes some years back.

The result tended to snag on things with those tall sights, but it was sort of the Swiss army knife of shotgun barrels. I wish I still had it.

[JWintergreen]

We are done. The new ones ran great. ZERO issues with them. Had a total of 2 old 870s that broke ejectors. Gonna send them to Ahlman’s up in MN to fix them.

That is great to hear. I am really glad that these new 870s worked out, especially after the bad experience y'all had with the Mossberg 590s. Thank you so much for starting this thread and sharing your results. I now have full confidence in purchasing a new 870.

I agree with the posters above about wanting to see new production rifle sight barrels. An 18 or 20 inch version, threaded for Rem Chokes, would be the perfect general purpose shotgun barrel. I have seen some new 20" rifled barrel Fieldmasters, with rifle sights, pop up on Gunbroker recently. I don't believe that they are even listed on the website yet. Hopefully, we will see rifle sight options in the Hardwood HD and Tactical lineups soon.

It would also be nice to see defensive 870s with optional gloss blued and parkerized finishes again, corncob forends on the Hardwood HD models, and a new run of Tac-14 Hardwoods.

[Eric_L]

The very few "express" style sights I've seen come through class have all been in the hands of people who had put more thought into what they were using than the average bear. I have a set of XS Express sights on an 870 Wingmaster and they work just fine for use of buckshot at 15 and in. Gets a little less sure at 25 because that extremely shallow V in the rear is pretty imprecise as an aiming reference and it's easy to be a little off in any direction.

On my 870's with factory rifle-style sights I install the TruGlo TFX sights. The wide rear notch is easier to use and gives no accuracy penalty out to extended distance. (I've made 150 yard shots offhand using them with slugs)

I've seen a fair few of the epoxy-fastened XS sights that fit over Remington beads come through class and they help, but they don't completely solve the issue. Sometimes they actually get installed sub-optimally and cause a change in the point of impact because of how it looks to the shooter.

As to ghost rings vs. express sights, for most of the work we do the differences will be negligible between the two setups. The deficiencies of the "express" style sights tend to show up at the things we do least with shotguns like precision slug use at longer ranges. Aiming with that XS beach ball at 50 yards on a B8 kind of sucks. You can do it, but for me it's slower and more fiddly than using a ghost ring or the more handgun-like sight picture of the TruGlo TFX sights.

I'd take the XS Express sights any day over a bead, though.

When drifting the front sight out of dovetail and installing new one, do you have a way to support the sight base, so as to reduce stress on the base to barrel adhesion? I have a 2016 police magnum, I do not know if it soldered. Thank you for all the good information.

[Lon]

When drifting the front sight out of dovetail and installing new one, do you have a way to support the sight base, so as to reduce stress on the base to barrel adhesion? I have a 2016 police magnum, I do not know if it soldered. Thank you for all the good information.

The tool you seek is a Williams front sight pusher. Used these when I used to work at the gun shop years ago.

https://www.sportsmansguide.com/prod...usher?a=582605

[Eric_L]

The tool you seek is a Williams front sight pusher. Used these when I used to work at the gun shop years ago.

https://www.sportsmansguide.com/prod...usher?a=582605

Perfect! Thank you.