Home Forums Birds & Dogs Shotguns Are 870 cantilever barrels worth messing with?

Looking at putting together a dedicated slug gun. Curious about whether to go with the 870 Express Tactical http://www.remington.com/products/firearms/shotguns/model-870/model-870-express-tactical.aspx that already has a ghost ring sight and a Picatinny rail instead.

Thanks,


Okie John

Because of the allowance for movement between the reciever and barrel on the 870, you will never get a good zero if you put a scope on the reciever directly (unless you pin/attach the barrel permanently to the reciever).

The best thing from an accuracy stand point IF YOU WANT TO MOUNT A SCOPE is the cantilever unless you pin the barrel.

Thanks for your answer.

I talked to Dennis at Damar about pinning. Does pinning improve results with cantilever barrels? Or should I just pin the gun and use their scope mount?


Okie John

Pinning will help any gun, but it has much less of an impact with the cantilever guns because the scope/mount/barrel are all together.

For me, it all depends on what I want to do with the gun. If it is a slug gun that will only be a slug gun and I really want it to shoot, I would go all out. The thing you should keep in mind though is that with rifled barrels you get a benefit from pinning, etc. because the potential is there. With the tactical model you mentioned, it is just smooth bore, so the accuracy potential is much less. From the looks of it, the tactical model with the scope mount is more ment for an Eotech or Red-dot.

It all depends on what you want the gun to do and how specialized you want to make it.

Thanks again. The point of this is shot placement, not to turn an 870 into a sniper rifle. I want to get the most out of a scope or an optical sight like Leupold's 1x14 Prismatic. Ranges will rarely go beyond 100 yards.


Okie John

http://www.shotgunworld.com/bbs/viewtopic.php?f=118&t=197756

You can do a home remedy of installing a "soda can shim," as described in the informational link above. "Worth messing with...?" Yes.

From what I've researched, folks at Remington feel the best that you can expect from a stock 870 rifled slug gun is 3 moa (100 yards), due to the tolerances involved (barrel/action slop). That isn't bad, for woods hunting.

The soda can shim rivals pinning a barrel, is less costly, and may improve accuracy enough to meet your needs. It's certainly worth a try, since it is inexpensive and simple.

I haven't done it yet, but I plan to try it as a winter project. I also have another thing I want to try. I think that if you use a good release agent on the interior of an 870 action (ie multiple coats of wax), you could reduce the action/barrel slop by putting a thin, uniform coat of good epoxy/bedding compound (ie steel bed or marinetex) on the exterior of the barrel (where it would be in contact with the receiver). After the epoxy it applied to the barrel/chamber area, slip it into the receiver, and lightly tighten the barrel nut and let it cure for a few days. Once it sets, I believe that you should have a minimal tolerance ("tight") barrel/action interface, which is removable, and low cost, and leaves the action unmodified in case you want to clean it or use another barrel.

For some reason, pinning a barrel never intrigued me. You'd need at least three pins around the chamber area to lock it up (3 points determine a plane)-and keep the bore axis centered. Epoxy does this and more. The soda cam shim is the similar appoach, just completely reversible in minutes. There was a good comment on that thread the mentioned a benefit of using a longer shim, that would wrap around the barrel more than 180 degrees. This would go along with the theory of keeping the bore axis centered, and hopefully improving accuracy.

Good luck. Make sure you get several fired groups to make a "BEFORE" and "AFTER" comparison, to give a finite result to your accurizing project. Should be a fun thing to do.

i have done what buttstock is planning to try. i have epoxied with acraglass gel the barrel into the reciver. i actually roughened up the barrel extension so the epoxy will stick and used release agent on the reciver. after curing you will end up with an epoxy shim stuck to the barrel that will act as a spacer. as long as the mag tube nut is tight it will reduce much of the play and helped out alot.

Interesting. Thanks for posting about your epoxy project. I like the idea of roughening the barrel area for good epoxy adhesion. I will incorporate that step.

I'm curious, what type of accuracy improvement did you achieve with your epoxy job? What did you use for release agent?

the barrel was a remington fully rifled barrel but it was a real sloppy fit in the receiver. it was hard to keep three slugs on a redfield target at 100 yards. after the epoxy it became a consistent 3 inch grouper at 100 with the slugs it liked.

release agent-- it is god awfull expensive but it always works, never had a problem with it-- it is the spray stuff that brownells sells.

Do the rifled slug barrels with the cantilever scope mount need shimming or pinning? I shot a fellows Winchester 1300 with a Nikon scope on it today with Hornady slugs, the scope was mounted to the receiver the barrel not pinned, and it was shooting about 2 inches at 50 yards.

So the question is were one to buy a cantilever rifled barrel and a good scope would you expect at least 3 inches at 100 with something it liked? I like that 11-87 20 inch slug gun.

I was surprised to dig a hornady out of the dirt backstop and see that it had lost its jacket and gone to pieces.