frontlander
New member
Howdy. A while back at a gun show I picked up a used 870 Express 12 gauge that had been worked over by Gunsite. MMC tritium ghost rings, shortened synthetic stock (12 3/4" LOP), Pachmayr foreend, 18" Vang barrel (no porting, 6 round side saddle. After several months of living with this new arm, and 400 rounds of ammo, here are my observations so far:
The gun is very handy. I like short, quick, fast handling arms (Model 94's both Winchester and Marlin, M1 Carbines, the old style lightweight ARs) and this gun fits right in. The short barrel combined with the short stock make it very easy to pack along in vehicles. Here on the ranch we spend a lot of time in tractors, trucks, etc. and the 870 doesn't take up much space tucked into the corner of the cab. The short stock does have a drawback for a stockcrawler such as myself: when wearing light summer weight clothing, my face is right on the narrowest point of the comb which has a nice habit of smacking the cheekbone with heavy loads. A cheek-eez pad would help and I temporarily built it up with duct tape for the same effect. I shoot all my long guns with my thumb on the right side of the grip so that does save me from the "thumb up the scnozz" syndrome. When wearing heavy cold weather clothing the stock length is just about perfect.
The gun's light weight does make it kick a bit with full power buck and slugs. Proper form is mandatory or else a horrible flinch will start to develop. Luckily I've learned from this forum the proper way to handle shotgun recoil (proper mount, weight forward stance, rounded recoil pad) so this really is not an issue.
I have fired 400 rounds of mostly #8 1 1/8 oz. 1200 fps promotional ammo evenly split at aerial and stationary targets. I patterned these loads at varying ranges from 7 ft to 25 yards and was quite impressed with the uniformity and tighness of the patterns. The Remington 9 pellet 00 stayed inside 9" at 25 yards. Remington and Federal 1 oz both hit about 1" above point of aim at 25 yards.
Our ranch is quite literally a "target rich environment" for firearms practice with thousands of ground squirrels (gophers) running rampant. The #8s will kill out to about 35 yards max. Running shots are great fun. I even shot a few of the rodents with slugs.
The MMC ghost ring sights are a great help when making precise long distance shots and don't seem to detract from making hits on aerial targets. I am not sold on the tritium option. I've used the gun in low light and no light conditions and have found that the tritium really starts working when I can no longer identify the target due to lack of light. If I were purchasing the sights new I would skip the tritium and buy more ammo. It does no harm, though.
The tolerances between the barrel and the Pachmayr foreend were too tight, allowing the forrend to stick to the barrel when the barrel was hot. This was easily fixed by sanding.
All in all I am very pleased with the quality and function of the 870 platform. This being my first 870, I have nothing to compare it to except its reputation and mine certainly lives up to it.
The gun is very handy. I like short, quick, fast handling arms (Model 94's both Winchester and Marlin, M1 Carbines, the old style lightweight ARs) and this gun fits right in. The short barrel combined with the short stock make it very easy to pack along in vehicles. Here on the ranch we spend a lot of time in tractors, trucks, etc. and the 870 doesn't take up much space tucked into the corner of the cab. The short stock does have a drawback for a stockcrawler such as myself: when wearing light summer weight clothing, my face is right on the narrowest point of the comb which has a nice habit of smacking the cheekbone with heavy loads. A cheek-eez pad would help and I temporarily built it up with duct tape for the same effect. I shoot all my long guns with my thumb on the right side of the grip so that does save me from the "thumb up the scnozz" syndrome. When wearing heavy cold weather clothing the stock length is just about perfect.
The gun's light weight does make it kick a bit with full power buck and slugs. Proper form is mandatory or else a horrible flinch will start to develop. Luckily I've learned from this forum the proper way to handle shotgun recoil (proper mount, weight forward stance, rounded recoil pad) so this really is not an issue.
I have fired 400 rounds of mostly #8 1 1/8 oz. 1200 fps promotional ammo evenly split at aerial and stationary targets. I patterned these loads at varying ranges from 7 ft to 25 yards and was quite impressed with the uniformity and tighness of the patterns. The Remington 9 pellet 00 stayed inside 9" at 25 yards. Remington and Federal 1 oz both hit about 1" above point of aim at 25 yards.
Our ranch is quite literally a "target rich environment" for firearms practice with thousands of ground squirrels (gophers) running rampant. The #8s will kill out to about 35 yards max. Running shots are great fun. I even shot a few of the rodents with slugs.
The MMC ghost ring sights are a great help when making precise long distance shots and don't seem to detract from making hits on aerial targets. I am not sold on the tritium option. I've used the gun in low light and no light conditions and have found that the tritium really starts working when I can no longer identify the target due to lack of light. If I were purchasing the sights new I would skip the tritium and buy more ammo. It does no harm, though.
The tolerances between the barrel and the Pachmayr foreend were too tight, allowing the forrend to stick to the barrel when the barrel was hot. This was easily fixed by sanding.
All in all I am very pleased with the quality and function of the 870 platform. This being my first 870, I have nothing to compare it to except its reputation and mine certainly lives up to it.