Chinese replacement barrel for 870?

[Reaper]

I may be able to trade a Remington 28 inch Express barrel for a Chinese 870 18 inch cyl bore barrel. Anyone have any experience with these Chinese barrels, good or bad?

[EdwardE]

I don't have any experience with a Chinese clone. Is there a particular reason you prefer that over a factory barrel?

[Synchronizor]

Is this a barrel from a Chinese 870 clone, or a Chinese-made barrel intended to be used on genuine Remington 870s?

[Reaper]

Dangit! Must be for a clone, lug that fits around mag tube is mounted in a different place than on my old 870 Express.

[Synchronizor]

Yeah, 870 clones tend to have longer magazine tubes, more like what you'll find on older Mossberg and Winchester pumps with non-extendable magazines. I don't know if this was done to try to make them more versatile, or to differentiate them from the real 870s being copied, but it's not a change I'm a fan of. For a multi-role shotgun that can easily accept magazine extensions, keeping the base magazine tube as short as the fore-end allows makes the gun more versatile and durable, and improves balance and saves weight on builds without magazine extensions.

[Mac]

The only other chinese 870 clones I have dealt with are Norinco and Dominion Arms.
Well all the Norinco's I have seen function well, every dominion arms required alot of elbow grease to get to run reliably. Alot of replacement parts from a real 870 too.

One thing that was most common is that the walls are rather thin on those barrels. I know several guys up this way who wanted to get porting or the vang comp back-boring and forcing cone lengthening and the smith refused to work with those barrels.

[Synchronizor]

Porting and overboring are kind of pointless modifications anyway. All they do is reduce muzzle velocity, so you can accomplish the same thing by just using lower-power shells.

I've heard about the Dominion Arms 870 clones. They sound like interesting guns, but I've never been able to find a manufacturer website. Do you know of any?

[Mac]

Nothing on the actual manufacturer. I have been unable to find any info on it.