The Remington 870 Express was your typical looking
shotgun. It had a wood stock and a 28
inch barrel threaded for choke tubes.
I have a Winchester
1300 that I use for hunting so the 870 was going to have a completely different
purpose. First item I addressed was the stock and fore grip. There are many
options available to fit your needs and appeal to your taste of styling. I
opted for the Magpul SGA stock and Magpul fore grip, both in FDE. Best price I
could find was on Amazon. The total for the pair came to $106 shipped. I’m very happy with the fit and finish as well
as the functionality. I didn’t take pictures of the install but it’s not
difficult and you can find several instructional videos on YouTube.
Next items on the list were a magazine expansion tube and an
upgraded follower. There are a few different brands out there with good reviews
but I ended up choosing the Sage International +2 magazine expansion tube and
GG&G follower. I liked the way the Sage looked, it was priced right ($50) and
I couldn’t find anything negative about it. It came with a longer spring and
barrel clamp. Installation was straight forward and I had zero issues. The
original 870 follower was plastic and they are known to fail. The GG&G is
made of billet and is one of the best replacements available. When installing
your magazine extension tube and remove the stock spring, the follower should
just slide out. Drop the new GG&G follower in, install the new spring and it’s
that easy. The GG&G follower ran
about $25.
While surfing eBay I ran across some laser engraved trigger
assembly pins. For $15 I picked up one with the punisher logo. This is just a
cosmetic mod. The factory pin just pushes out with a punch and the new pin
slides in.
So the 28 inch barrel just wasn’t cutting it for me. For a
home defense gun, the shorter the better. When turning corners a long barrel is
not ideal. I called two local gunsmiths and they quoted me between $20-$45 to
have it cut down to 18.5 inches. That didn’t include finishing, crowning, or anything
extra. That was just for a straight cut. After watching a couple YouTube videos
I decided to tackle this myself. Worst case scenario I have to take it to the gunsmith
and have them fix what I screw up. I used a bench vise, hacksaw, some cutting
fluid and a file. I made sure the vise was level and also that the barrel was
level inside the vise. I bought a brand new 18T hacksaw blade. I applied some
cutting oil to the blade and the barrel and began cutting. It went pretty
smooth and took about 5 minutes. I rechecked to make sure everything was level
several times throughout the cut while also reapplying the cutting oil. Once it
was cut I used a file to deburr all the edges. I then took some matte BBQ grill
paint and touched up the cut. While it’s not perfect I’m more than pleased with
the outcome.
The final step was choosing a flashlight and mount. I ended
up going with L&M’s mount and for the time being a Maglite XL50 LED
flashlight. The mount retails for around $40 and the flashlight was $29.99 at
Lowes. The two work perfect together. I’ll probably hit the light with some
matte black paint at some point. Install was simple and the outcome was
perfect.
I built this gun in just over a week. I relied on user
reviews from forums and YouTube videos to make most of my choices. Overall I
couldn’t be happier.
*I apologize for the picture quality. At the time I was building it I hadn't planned on doing a review. I'll get better pictures and updated the blog later this week.
Excellent. Well done.
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