Home Forums Birds & Dogs Shotguns Saddle mount or ? to mount scope on 870?

What is the best way to mount a scope or red dot on a Remington 870 Express? The metal on top of the receiver seems quite thin for a drill and tap.

I am leaning toward a saddle mount, attached by two pins. Anyone have experience with one of those? I am wary of how well it will handle the recoil of 3” magnum slugs and buck shot. I tried a scope base that clamps to the rib but with a small red dot sight mounted it kicked completely off on the 12th shot.

If I go with the saddle, what brand is best? Metal or composite saddle? There seems to be a huge price range for what appears to be virtually the same item. I'd prefer one that fits down tightly on the receiver rather than the ones high enough to see through under the Picatinny rail. I've googled and read till my eyes are crossing so thought I'd take a shortcut and ask others what you have found.

forget the saddle mount. most of them you have to tighten the bolts to stop movement and then you bind the trigger. there is plenty of room and metal thickness on the receiver behind the barrel extension to drill and tap for a scope mount. I have standardized using a weaver #62 plate. it is for the older Remington 760 so then any such mount will fit if you dislike weaver.

shooter42, thank you! You obviously know what you are talking about and the trigger binding with a tight saddle mount is something I would not have discovered till too late.

I would definitely prefer a drilled and tapped, solidly screwed on base and you turned my search that direction.

Re the #62 Weaver plate, neither Weaver nor anybody else lists that as fitting an 870. I believe you that it will fit the 870 but wish you were around here to install it for me! I am not a gunsmith nor have the slightest trace of machining knowledge nor tools. I moved to this rural/small/town area a few months ago and have not yet found a gunsmith.

I'm in no hurry and now feel like I am heading in the right direction. There is bound to be a good smith in one of the nearer big towns.

I want to put a red dot sight on my shotgun for hunting deer in gunshot only areas. When the rib mount failed as I sighted in for deer season this Fall, I went hunting with the factory bead and rib open sight, and killed my personal best blacktail buck.

Okanagan,
Nowhere will you find any info that a #62 Weaver base will fit an 870 because it was designed for the Remington 760 pump rifle; however, it will fit a 12 gauge 870 just fine. As Shooter42 points out, there is plenty of meat on the receiver right behind where the barrel indent fits in the receiver, and that is where you do your drilling and tapping. I am no machinist either but it's not relatively difficult to do, I did my 870 back in 1980. You simply need to take the gun apart which is relatively simple and you need a drill press to assure the holes are straight. And a #29 drill bit and a 6X48 tap.

Note in the picture that this is a Weaver #162, which is basically the same base as the #62 but for the "pivot mount" rings which swing to the side to allow use of the iron sights. All pivot ring bases were numbered the same as the regular bases but preceded with a "1". While long obsolete now, the #162 base and pivot rings can still be found on Fleabay.

I simply put the base/rings/scope on top of the receiver held in place by elastic bands till I found the right position for the base in relation to the eye relief of the scope and marked it on the top of the receiver. Then using just the base, made sure the base was aligned straight on the receiver, marked the holes and punched then with a center punch. Then drill and tap, really a piece of cake as long as you proceed carefully.

First picture shows the gun with the scope.


In this next pic, I have swung the pivot rings off to the side(which allows use of the iron sights), and also shows you about where the base mounts right behind the thin part of the receiver that the barrel indent slides into.


Good luck with your project, hope this helped you a bit.

Having spent many days in my youth trying to find the best receiver scope mount for a non-fixed barrel it became more and more and more and more clear the premise is flawed.

Get the barrel with the scope base extension and do it right the first time.

wink man, THANK YOU! Very helpful info.

Sitka, you are correct I'm sure but at the moment I am a tightwad and have everything but the scope mount in hand. I may yet buy a cantilevered barrel, and if I do it will be rifled. And then the temptation is to go with a 20 gauge slug gun. My cousin gets good hunting accuracy to 150 yards with his 20 gauge rifled Savage that hunts like a short range rifle.

I like the theoretical ability to change from grouse to buckshot to slugs in the field by merely changing a choke tube--- though I only did one field choke tube change, from buck to slug, this entire Fall. Hmmm...

I am getting surprisingly good accuracy with a rifled choke tube out to 100 yards, shooting high velocity 7/8 oz. Remington slugs in 3" magnum. Using Federal Flite Control 00 buckshot and a cylinder choke tube, at 40 yards I got all 12 pellets in a 10x14 inch pattern with 5 pellets grouped within 4 inches on the center bull. I need to do more patterning but ran low on the slugs and buckshot I had been able to find in local stores, so went hunting. The slugs hit dead on at 40 yards and a decent blacktail obliged with a trotting broadside shot at 37 yards, hit precisely where aimed.

The longer I think about this the more I lean to the cantilevered one piece barrel and scope base, and I'll bet that is what I end up with.

As one respecting your posting history... I bet you are right.

That is the best way to go. Hands down!
Along with other issues, when you take the barrel off to clean the gun, you have to rezero it because the scoped receiver and barrel will never match up exactly. Huge PIA. Not an issue with the cantilever because the barrel and scope are always hard mounted together.

That... Just make sure the forward-most hole is drilled just aft of the barrel extension.. And take time to ensure the receiver's set up level and the holes are drilled at exactly TDC..


Those work fine too - but at a mucho steeper price..