Keeping your 870 Loaded

[spacecowboy237]

Good Morning guys,

This is my first post and this is probably an issue that has been talked about a lot but as a new owner its probably the biggest question I could have about owing ANY gun.

For home protection practices, what are some of your methods? For safety, keeping it unloaded seems like it would be the most logical step. However for home defense, having to load a gun if a situation were to occur seems to be unnecessary extra steps.

In my house, I've kept it loaded for the last week only keeping shells in the magazine holder, safety on and stored in its locked case under our bed. It came with a trigger lock, and I'd like to utilize it but even that seems problematic to fuss with keys. My wife is aware of it's whereabouts and we do have a little guy running around the house. He is almost 3 and is not at an age where he would be bothered with anything other than his Hotwheels and monster trucks. He doesn't play in our room and has no idea that we own an 870. We will address things when he gets a little older.

So. . .is it wise to keep it loaded? How many of you advise this practice? Any other tips or advice?

Thanks for your time.


PS- does keeping you mag loaded damage the spring tension over time?

[Chief Brody]

I keep mine with a full mag tube, empty chamber, safety off, hammer down. All I'll need to do is rack in a round and she's ready to go. The shotgun is in its soft case, unzipped, under my bed. No kids to worry about yet, so I feel perfectly fine with this setup. In my opinion, the thing's got to be loaded. It's not like slapping in a pistol mag and chambering a round, loading a shotgun is a lot slower. You don't want to be fumbling with loose shells in the dark when you a hear a bump in the night.

Keeping the magazine tube loaded does not wear down on the spring, a common misconception. What does wear it down is constant use, but I mean thousands and thousands of rounds-worth, working that spring.

Welcome to the forum, lots of good people and information here -
Steve

[DaveC]

Hello, and welcome.

First, take a class on defensive shotgun use. That would be my recommendation. Try to include and involve anyone authorized to use the chosen firearm.

Looking at the points you raise, in turn:

"For home protection practices, what are some of your methods? For safety, keeping it unloaded seems like it would be the most logical step. However for home defense, having to load a gun if a situation were to occur seems to be unnecessary extra steps."

I do not have children. My Remington 870 shotgun is opened, visually inspected that it is unloaded, which includes inserting my finger in the chamber and the tube magazine--I have an S&J Delrin follower. The bolt is closed, the safety removed, and the trigger pulled to de-cock the shotgun. Then, four No.4 buckshot shells are loaded into the tube magazine. I *always* load with the shotgun shouldered, pointed at a "safe" or "threat" direction, as I would load to top off the magazine in actual use. I never load with the shotgun in my lap, or held in some other fashion. Reinforce habits and practice where possible. The safety is then put on. I was taught this way, so it works for me.

"In my house, I've kept it loaded for the last week only keeping shells in the magazine holder, safety on and stored in its locked case under our bed. It came with a trigger lock, and I'd like to utilize it but even that seems problematic to fuss with keys. My wife is aware of it's whereabouts and we do have a little guy running around the house. He is almost 3 and is not at an age where he would be bothered with anything other than his Hotwheels and monster trucks. He doesn't play in our room and has no idea that we own an 870. We will address things when he gets a little older."

Kids are curious. Be very careful. In my state, Texas, it is against the law to leave a loaded firearm in such a fashion that a child can access it. Leaving a firearm in a "locked case" versus an actual gun safe is a bad idea. The case will cause rusting. You might look into installing a single shotgun security mount. This would hold your shotgun along a wall, a bit like shotguns in a police cruiser. You'd unlock the "shackle" holding into the rack, and remove the shotgun. In my case, my firearms are in a gun safe. When I get home, I open the gun safe, remove my defensive shotgun, and put it within reach of my bed. I also keep a "nightstand gun" in a locked box operated by a finger pad. My house is small, and so I have locks on my fence gates, and I keep a heavy barred door locked, and a deadbolt lock on the front door. If I did not have solid door locks, someone could kick in the door and be literally on top of me in a heartbeat. A good defensive course will give you some realistic and pragmatic tips of how to make your home less inviting to a criminal.

"So. . .is it wise to keep it loaded? How many of you advise this practice? Any other tips or advice?"

You must consider your particular dilemma: HD on a budget, a small child in the home. Is a shotgun the best choice for HD in your particular circumstances? What are the trade offs? How does it fit into you plan? There are folks who advocate keeping the defensive shotgun fully loaded, including a round in the chamber. Others think an empty chamber is the way to go. Could you keep it entirely unloaded, with the action open and pop a shell into the chamber? Perhaps, but obviously you've only got a single-shot at that point, and you'll be loading shells into the tube when you've awakened from "zero dark thirty" when you have to rouse yourself from slumber and prepare to see what woke you up and made you go for your defensive shotgun... A double barrel sxs 20 gauge with some shells in a butt cuff or a "Tuff products" speed loader holding six shells together in pairs would be a better choice than a pump action kept entirely unloaded, no? Again, is the shotgun a "must" for your HD plan?

Thanks for your time.


PS- does keeping you mag loaded damage the spring tension over time?

Springs simply wear out at some point through heavy use and will need to be replaced periodically. Keeping a magazine loaded "weakening the spring tension" is largely a myth. Constantly compressing and uncompressing a spring will induce wear, and after very, very, very many repetitions, weaken the spring more than keeping the spring compressed for a long time. The spring of the magazine should be the least of your concerns, frankly.

Again, welcome, and good luck with your 870, or whatever you decide to use.

[DaveC]

PS: Mine is pretty basic: 18-1/2″ cylinder choked Mossberg-mfr. barrel, an EOTech integrated forend light/lamp, a four-shot “side saddle” shell holder on the left side of the reciever (stock 4+1 magazine, it behooves one to have extra ammo available, but a 6-shell or an 8-shell side-saddle adds excessive weight, and also is adverse for balance). And a youth-size length-of-pull full pistol-grip stock. This was an adaptation to make it easier for my wife to use the shotgun, and it works well with the position of the 870 safety. Of course, were it a Mossberg with the tang-mounted safety, I’d stick with a traditional stock.

[spacecowboy237]

excellent advice DaveC and I appreciate the storage options.

Our son is our biggest concern no matter what the topic is and he is the main reason we decided to purchase the 870. We live in an apartment in a less than desireable section of Philadelphia and my Jeep has already been broken into. Nothing of value was stolen and it was probably a drug addict looking for $$$. Regardless, until we move we need to at least feel that we have an upperhand.

Keeping him safe from the 870 is also a big concern, which is why I started the thread. Eventhough I can't see anything going wrong with him and the weapon now, it'll soon change. I personally know I was a curious and investigative boy. My parents were not gun owners however, so we as parents need to learn the do's and dont's so when he is of age, he will learn the right way.

[DaveC]

I see. Philadelphia. There was a time I used to hear from folks from Philly that it was the "vanguard of the apocalypse."
When that TV show "The Wire" was in pre-production, it was apparently scheduled to begin filming in Philadelphia, but wound up in Balmer, MD instead--at one point the "murder capital of the US" if I'm not mistaken.

Well, if you live in an apartment, which is something I did most of my life, you can't make holes in the walls and so on to attach lag bolts to wall studs, etc. So I guess you'd have to be creative. A sturdy, heavily constructed bookshelf might serve as a solid mounting surface for a shotgun mount that locks around the receiver. Think police car, but on a piece of solidly constructed furniture. Certainly, the über-tactical-sensei/guru ex-PD/LEO Gabriel Suárez once wrote that the shotgun was what should be used in an "immediately expected pistol fight," which is why my Rem. 870 plays a key role in my HD plan... All I can say is try to ask your questions on multiple forums from folks who have kids. They'd have better advice than I'd be able to provide. I have used relatively inexpensive locking sheet-metal cabinets with weights in the base in apartment closets to store my firearms. My friends who were metal workers used to give me a hard time telling me just how quickly they could gain access... But time is not the residential burglar's friend, and all we can really do is have enough delaying mechanisms that they'll move on.

Hopefully some additional folks will chime in with their solutions to your security dilemmas. Anyhow, good luck!

[Synchronizor]

I'm also in the "full mag, empty chamber" camp. An unloaded gun is just a blunt instrument, and not terribly effective for self-defense (though the all-steel 870 would probably be better than some others...). A tube-fed shotgun especially is very slow to load, and requires practiced motions & fine motor skills that are often difficult to apply in stressful situations. Keeping the magazine loaded allows the gun to be very quickly brought into action, but an empty chamber makes unintentional discharges impossible until that point. More than most other types of actions, racking the slide on a pump gun is very quick and intuitive - with practice.

The state of the safety switch and whether or not you drop the hammer are preferential steps. I keep my 870 cocked and locked, personally. I've had so much hands-on time with my 870 that I can work the action lock and chamber a round as fast as I get the gun to my shoulder, without even having to think about it. Disengaging the safety and/or dropping the hammer is a perfectly valid choice, and can make things simpler for folks who don't practice regularly, but this does present fewer obstacles for kids or other unauthorized individuals. In your case, it sounds like keeping the hammer cocked and the safety engaged might be a good way to go, as even with a loaded magazine, a very young child will have a fair bit of difficulty getting the gun to a truly dangerous state. Just make sure you and your wife get enough practice to be able to work those controls under stress.


DaveC also raised a good point about the importance of coming up with a home defense plan that caters to your specific environment and situation. A gun by itself does not a plan make.


As for security, remember that a gun safe (or locking gun case) keeps the gun from being accessed, while a gun lock (or locking gun rack) keeps the gun from being used. If your kid is your primary concern, either should be effective in preventing accidents. Safes and locking cases are great when you're out of the house, as they're far more effective at preventing theft than gun locks, but they can be a hindrance if you need to be able to access your gun in a hurry (unless they're specially-designed for fast access). When you're home and want to have your 870 at-hand when needed, you may want to consider taking it out of the case and securing it against your kid with a gun lock that you can remove quickly (you can obviously still keep it concealed if you prefer).

The Regal locks that are included with new 870s are pretty nice, but if you don't like the idea of having to deal with keys, there are gun locks of various types available that use combinations instead. You mentioned in your introductory thread that you're aware of my YouTube videos, but just in case you haven't come across it yet, I do have one video in particular that goes over some of the lock options for the 870.


As far as education goes, I was raised around guns in Alaska. Pretty much everyone owned them up there. If you'd like, I can relay some of the things my parents did (and some of the things I feel they could have done better) to keep me and my siblings safe around their firearms. All kids are different of course, and require different approaches, but it may give you some things to think about.

[spacecowboy237]

LOL@ Dave C. Yeah, Philly at one time was pretty rough but it was probably about 15-20 years ago. In actuality the city has come a long way although crime still does happen. Gentrification has done the city well aside from the influx of hipsters. But with hipsters usually come hipster bars with excellent beer selections.

These days the crime is centralized to Chester which is a suburb of Philly and Camden which is. . . Camden.

[spacecowboy237]

Appreciate the help Mr. Sync.

I actually did catch your vid on locks this weekend. Everything with owning a gun, I'm learning is methodical. Practice, practice, practice everything. The wife heard me the other day loading and unloading our dummy shells while in the bathroom. I've been unloading by using the Fore end then manually keeping the carrier up so it pops right out of the bottom and not flying all over the place.

It's crazy, when we first got the gun I was nervous as hell around live ammo. Now, since I know the basic functions of how the gun works I jsut feel more comfortable with myself. I like learning about the technical side/parts and pieces of the gun a lot.

[Synchronizor]

I've been unloading by using the Fore end then manually keeping the carrier up so it pops right out of the bottom and not flying all over the place.

You can also unload your magazine while keeping the action closed by holding the shell carrier up, and then depressing the shell latch to let the shells out one by one. With the action closed, the shell carrier is spring-loaded, and pops the shells neatly into your palm.