2scars wrote:I added a lefty safety and Williams Fire-sights to the shortened (21.5-ish") barrel. Also added the Walnut stock that uses the shorter stock bolt (not police) and the Police foregrip. Was going to have it refinished, but I think it is just fine this way.
Nice setup, I for one really appreciate the look of a well-used 870. All the "war wounds" give it a lot of character, but since it's an 870, odds are it runs better than it did the day it left the factory.
I can't tell, is your 870 a Magnum, or is it a 2.75"-only gun? Also, what specific left-handed safety button did you use?
2scars wrote:Only thing I would add would be a +1 or +2 mag extension, but I have a hard time with believing that I will get into a fire fght with anything that I can't win with 5 00 or some slugs.
An extension is nice to have on a HD gun. Odds are, you'll never need that many rounds (actually, odds are you'll never need the gun), but better to have the shells and not need them than need them and not have them. A lot of the kind of home invasions you'll want to be armed for are carried out by groups these days, and anyone who thinks they'll be scoring perfect hits in the stress of a life-or-death shooting is deluding themselves. If nothing else, the added mass of the extension and extra shells will reduce recoil.
If you want to go with a full magazine extension, I'd recommend one of the Remington factory extensions in a heartbeat. Nothing better on the market for a short-barreled combat/defensive build in my opinion. If your barrel's longer than 20", you'll have room under there for a full +3 extension.
However, if you want to save some money and avoid complexity, a single-piece +1 extension is a great way to go as well. I really like the look of one of these on an old-school riot gun, and they're so simple and easy. There's no need to mess with clamps, coupling nuts, or proper tube mating, these are essentially a long magazine cap, and they go on and come off exactly the same way.
- p1 ext S.JPG (43.18 KiB) Viewed 6524 times
Another thing you could consider is upgrading the action with updated flex-tab components. Remington redesigned the breech bolt, slide assembly, and shell carrier in the 1980s to address a specific type of jam that could bind up the action on older 870s. They also offered these parts on their own as drop-in replacement kits, but best as I can tell from your pictures, your gun was never updated. I wouldn't consider it a real urgent thing; the malfunctions were pretty rare as long as the gun was in proper working order and the magazine was loaded correctly, but when it did happen, it could be a real pain to unjam. If you can't get the updated parts from (what I presume to be) the "doner gun" in the first picture, you can usually find them used online for less than brand-new parts (often a lot less if you wait for good deals).
