Tactical forend

[miky4321]

Hello, I am a new owner of an 870 Remington, and I have one question for now. I recently purchased an 870 express 20 gauge, 7 shot pump, and a 6 shell, 'Sureshell' 6-round shotshell carrier... I really like the firearm and the carrier... However, installation requires me to either 'saw off' my factory forend for clearance purposes, or purchase a 'tactical' replacement... Any suggestions??? I would, indeed, desire to stick with a simple, factory-esque, sleek forend rather than a pistolgrip style or something with four rails which is all that I see available online...

Does Remington have an accessory website such as Ruger does???

Worst case, I would rather purchase another, factory quality forend and saw it off such as to keep the original parts... Suggestions???

Thank You,

Mikey

[Synchronizor]

Welcome to the forum.

Normally, I'd recommend a SpeedFeed LE fore-end without hesitation, but unfortunately they only offer their sporting-style fore-ends for small-frame 870s. If you want a riot-style cob fore-end, Choate offers a version for 20ga 870s. J.D. McGuire uses this fore-end on his AI&P 20ga Tactical shotgun, which is a pretty solid endorsement.


If you like the feel of your current fore-end, buying an extra and shortening it is a good way to go, as long as it's a solid piece that you can safely cut down. Remington does have an online store, but it isn't very good. If you want to order parts, you're better off downloading their full parts list from their website (which isn't working for me right now, so I can't give you the exact URL) and calling their customer service line.

[DaveC]

WANT!

Thanks for posting the 20-ga. tactical build Synchronizor... 12.5-in. length-of-pull strikes me as ideal... As far as tactical buckshot for the 20-gauge goes, I'm aware of No. 3 buckshot. Are there other buckshot sizes for the all-yellow shell?

[Synchronizor]

As far as tactical buckshot for the 20-gauge goes, I'm aware of No. 3 buckshot. Are there other buckshot sizes for the all-yellow shell?

#3B (.25" nominal diameter) is the popular buckshot size for the 20ga, but you'll also find #4B (.24") and #2B (.27") loads from mainstream ammo manufacturers. The issue with going larger than #2B is a geometric one.

3-circle nested.JPG (14.94 KiB) Viewed 3208 times

The minimum diameter of a circle that will enclose 3 identical smaller, non-overlapping circles (arranged in a close-fitting triangle as shown above) can be found by multiplying the diameter of the smaller circles by a factor of about 2.1547. To enclose 4 in a square, the factor is approximately 2.4142, and for 5 circles, it's about 2.7013 (in exact form, these quantities would be expressed as functions involving either square roots of integers or trig functions, both of which are messy to represent using plain text). For two circles, the factor is obviously 2, and for six in a hexagon, the factor is 3 because you can fit a seventh pellet in the middle (but things start getting more complicated there because you can't stagger the central pellet in subsequent tiers like you can the pellets in the outer ring).

Anyway, ignoring the possible complication of a cup-style wad, a tier of three #2B pellets requires a minimum bore diameter of .582", comfortably less than the .615" bore diameter of a 20ga. But the same arrangement with #1B (.3") would need a bore of at least .646", so a #1B load for a 20ga would have to stack the pellets two to a tier, which wastes a lot of space and encourages pellet deformation. 0B (.32") and larger sizes are even worse; you can't even fit two of those pellets side-by-side inside a .615" cylinder, so they would need to be stacked in a goofy zig-zag arrangement. Packing efficiency aside, it doesn't take a genius to guess what will happen to those pellets when they're suddenly and violently accelerated to supersonic velocities. Remember what happens to single-file stacks of buckshot in a .410 shell?

I have heard mention of #1B and larger 20ga buckshot loads from small specialty or custom ammo makers, but even if they use some special wads or buffering to avoid severe pellet deformation (which they may well not), there's no getting around the fundamental pellet count/pellet size limitations of the 20ga bore diameter. Even #2B isn't very space-efficient in a 20ga; Federal's 20ga #2 load is a 3" magnum shell with only 18 pellets, while their 2.75" #3B and #4B loads contain 20 and 24 pellets, respectively. That's a considerable drop in pellet count to gain just two hundredths of an inch in diameter.

Standard 2.75" 20-pellet #3B or 24-pellet #4B loads are the way to go for most social work with a 20ga, especially HD. The ammunition is easy to find, and compares very well to the performance of typical 2.75" 12ga #4B loads containing 21-27 pellets. Put one of those in the right place, and the recipient won't have a chance to notice that the smoking hull being ejected is yellow.