New production 870 Express

[TCinVA]

Expanding on the bead sight thing for a moment:

Whenever you mention bead sights on the internet, someone will inevitably show up and proclaim that they use a bead just fine. And I'm sure some of them actually have fired a shotgun with defensive munitions in the gun (buckshot, slugs) and can what they intend.

That's cool.

...but that depends on how the gun interacts with your body. The drop on the comb of a shotgun is crucial to wing shooters because that has huge implications for how they mount the gun. At the highest levels, the gun's fit is tailored to their exact physiology by custom gun makers who take fastidious measurement at several points of contact to get the gun to fit. They even have the buyer point a shotgun at their face so they can fine tune the alignment of the gun with the customer's eye when they mount it.

Absolutely none of this is happening on a police issue shotgun. Or, frankly, one people are using for self defense.

I guarantee you that almost nobody else walking this planet has the exact same measurements as I do. Height, build, length of your neck, shape and placement of your cheek bones on the skull, the length of your arms...all that varies from person to person and all of that has relevance to exactly where your eyeball ends up in relation to the bead on a shotgun. That's why it's a fucking terrible sighting system for a defensive shotgun.

[TGS]

@TCinVA, if bead sights are undesirable and something else is preferred, do you see a difference in performance with students when using express sights vs ghost ring setups?

[TCinVA]

@TCinVA, if bead sights are undesirable and something else is preferred, do you see a difference in performance with students when using express sights vs ghost ring setups?

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.

[5pins]

When you have a minute can you post side by side of old vs new? Assuming you have any old ones left in the parts drawer.

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[DDTSGM]

Expanding on the bead sight thing for a moment:

Whenever you mention bead sights on the internet, someone will inevitably show up and proclaim that they use a bead just fine. And I'm sure some of them actually have fired a shotgun with defensive munitions in the gun (buckshot, slugs) and can what they intend.

That's cool.

...but that depends on how the gun interacts with your body. The drop on the comb of a shotgun is crucial to wing shooters because that has huge implications for how they mount the gun. At the highest levels, the gun's fit is tailored to their exact physiology by custom gun makers who take fastidious measurement at several points of contact to get the gun to fit. They even have the buyer point a shotgun at their face so they can fine tune the alignment of the gun with the customer's eye when they mount it.

Absolutely none of this is happening on a police issue shotgun. Or, frankly, one people are using for self defense.

I guarantee you that almost nobody else walking this planet has the exact same measurements as I do. Height, build, length of your neck, shape and placement of your cheek bones on the skull, the length of your arms...all that varies from person to person and all of that has relevance to exactly where your eyeball ends up in relation to the bead on a shotgun. That's why it's a fucking terrible sighting system for a defensive shotgun.

First of all, I'm that guy that shows up and proclaims that he uses beads just fine. Second of all, I liked your post because I agree fundamentally with what you posted.

I think one of the big problems we've had over the years, at least in LE, is instructors teaching defensive shotgun the way they learned to shoot pheasant. Two different things. Speaking from the LE perspective, police officers have been overwhelmingly issued shotguns with bead sights, so it's imperative to develop techniques that work with bead sights.

My perspective is that stock length is one of the primary areas to be addressed - almost all stocks are too long. The problem is that absent a couple makers, such as Choate, most short 'youth' or 'tactical' stocks also reduce the stock's toe length. This results in the tendency to bury the stock in the shoulder and shoot high.

If the shooter keeps their head even semi erect, brings the comb of the stock to their cheek, they should have proper alignment using the bead. They need to know what proper alignment of the bead onto the receiver looks like in order to achieve this, and then need to be dry-drilled on 'head erect, up to the cheek, back to the shoulder' until they are fluid in mounting the shotgun properly.

At that point, the bead becomes the sighting reference with the rear sight plane (top of the receiver) secondary or not considered, and they are able to get fast reliable hits within the capability of the shell's pattern, generally 25 yards.

There is no doubt that using rifle or ghost ring sights increases accuracy at range and makes teaching shorter range shooting somewhat easier. That being said, I don't feel the shooter who has had a modicum of training in properly mounting the shotgun is disadvantaged inside buckshot range using bead sights.

[Tokarev]

Is it MIM?

I like the increased area up front. It may still eventually crack there at the L area but it will probably take awhile. It looks like something they should have done in about 1960.

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[farscott]

The new ejector is definitely injection molded as the gates and mold ejector pins are visible in the part. My concern is the radius where the nose meets the body. The larger the radius the less likely stress cracking is to start in the radius (within reason). The radius on the ejector could be and should be larger whether it is forged, machined, stamped, or molded.

[Tokarev]

The new ejector is definitely injection molded as the gates and mold ejector pins are visible in the part. My concern is the radius where the nose meets the body. The larger the radius the less likely stress cracking is to start in the radius (within reason). The radius on the ejector could be and should be larger whether it is forged, machined, stamped, or molded.

The old style ejector broke all the time. Shoot a few mag tubes of slugs or full-power buck and the magazine cap starts to loosen up. As soon as the cap loosens a bit the barrel also loosens. Once the barrel is a little loose it will start clocking itself against the nose of the ejector housing. It will crack through the area where the step is. I've also seen 1 or 2 crack from the step back toward the rivet.

Companies have tried a few different things like wave washers between the cap and barrel band to help keep the cap tight. Or soft jaw pliers and crank the cap down so tight it won't come loose.



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[willie]

Yes. Cheapest 590 you can get.

Attachment 84085

Academy in Texas has been listing this at $379. I have seen them in stock but have not been in the store in two months.

[willie]

I was afraid of that.

On those, if you can see the bead, the gun is aimed too high. When I'm forced to shoot one of those I actually use the screws on top of the receiver as my aiming point because Mossberg sets the bead so damn low that if you see any gold above the screws you're going to be stupidly high. Remington's pedestal bead is better.

Mossberg insists on using a bead height and a stock comb height that are incompatible with one another. The bead on those guns can work on a 26" or longer barrel, but they're a bloody catastrophe on 18.5" and below. I'd wager Mossberg is "correct" in that there is nothing wrong with the sights on the shotguns in that they are abnormal from Mossberg's usual production. It's just that their theory on the bead is bloody awful and because I'd wager damn near nobody on their staff has any sort of actual knowledge about defensive gauge use they have no idea how catastrophically wrong their setup is.

I doubt it's an option for you, but if you'd like I can put you in touch with an outfit that can get you some inexpensive dots to put on those guns. I figure if you're being handed bead-sighted Mossbergs the odds that you'd be allowed to mount optics are nearly zero, but I have to throw that out there for the sake of my conscience.

For my Mossberg 20 ga with a vent rib short barrel, I had a problem with the gun shooting low. I installed a Beartooth comb raising kit which resolved my issue for shooting buckshot too low. For shooting high, a taller bead is needed, if available.

When new firearms arrive at a law enforcement range, I would think that armorer inspection and adjustment or repair would occur before trainees saw the guns.