I was in an auction for guns and made a bid .. and holy crap I won it. Now I am a proud owner of a Remington Rifle 12ga, 870 Express Magum 28 inch barrel. Don't really know much about this shotgun. Can I replace it with a 20in or 18 in barrel? I know the magum barrel are worth lots of dollars.. Wanted to use it as a self defense gun
Well the Remington 870 has a huge aftermarket. Almost anything that you want to do to it, can be done. Here is a search on Midway that yielded 773 results. http://www.midwayusa.com/find?userSearchQuery=remington+870 Have fun shopping!
Yes, Remington as well as Mossberg (yes they make a Remington barrel) in 18" as well as 20". Make sure you remove any waterfowl limiter from the magazine if there is one. You might also consider adding a magazine tube extension to bump the capacity up a few more.
it's hard to say anything bad about the 870. they're a pretty versatile piece and stone reliable. I use mine mainly for trap/skeet and they do make a nice security weapon with shorter barrel and ext. mag. we used them in the Navy. you can swap out the barrel in less than a minute, and can pick up replacements pretty cheaply. congrats on your prize!!
There are a lot of barrel options for the 870 and I don't think magnum chambers are particularly expensive relative to standard ones, the manufacturer just has to run the reamer down a fraction of an inch further. There is a broader shotgun thread on here somewhere and I know the 870 has been discussed at length.
870 is a good well known gun. A friend and my dad both have them, and they are reliable but when they jam it gets real nasty. Both guns have jammed while hunting, and we had to disassemble them to release the shell, there was no other way to do it. Not sure if oil would help or not, but it couldn't hurt.
That happened to my son once when we were trap-shooting, he had a 20 gauge 870 and somehow managed to jam it and there was no fixing it in the field, we had to take it home and methodically take it apart until we released the jam. I think that this is rare, but it happens.
I have an 870 12g that did that a bit when it was new, happened twice at the range. I did some searching, took it home and took some emery cloth to the internal bits that rub. Didn't remove much, mostly just fined the edges and took off any burs. That action is SLICK now, works great, and I've put a couple thousand rounds through it since doing trap, skeet and hunting and it has never done it again. I trust it completely now. For the 1/2 hour it took it was totally worth it.
I will picking it up today and taking it to one of the gun shops to buy a new barrel. I'm leaning toward a 18.5 if they have it. Click to Zoom Remington Barrel Remington 870 12 Gauge 3" 18-1/2" Improved Cylinder with Tritium Rifle Sights Off to the range on Sunday .. wally world has a good price 12 ga rounds.
That is very true, as far as resale value. But as a great tool and fun toy, it has a lot of value. Keep it, use it, take care of it, and you can pass it to someone else that can do the same.
