I recently traded for a Tacti-cool Remmy 870, and I intend to use it to hunt with mainly. It came with an 18" barrel that is threaded for chokes, as it has a breechtip on it. It also came with the XS Ghost Ring shotgun sights, which I intend to swap out the front dot with a blade sight.
I want to shoot mainly slugs, and I grew up shooting them out of a 24" smoothbore barrel with no choke. Anyone have any experience with shooting slugs out of an 18" barrel and have recommendations for a choke selection? I know I'm going to have to spend some time patterning it, but ammo and range time ain't cheap, so I figure a little experienced advice might be helpful.
Also, what about buckshot? I'd imagine a Modified would be a good starting point. What kind of range do you guys get out of buckshot with the shorter barrels?
Or should I just cough up the cash and get a set of barrels for it?
A picture for your time and thoughts:
The great thing about the 870 is you have options, there are millions of aftermarket products made to fit the 870. I just went to a more tactical looking stock on my 870. Up close your short barrel will do fine, Id test it with slugs and buck shot to see what it does first hand. After that you should better know where you stand...
i have a poly choke on my 12g works great and you can adjust it to fit whatever your hunting cylinder bore for slugs all the way down to full and everything inbetween!works great on my mossberg
I was always told improved cylinder for a smoothbore and slugs, and modified for a smoothbore with buckshot. in my benelli I get a great pattern with the buckshot right where I'm aiming and a great 5-shot smoothbore slug group you could cover with a playing card, but there a foot left and 8-10" high, so for slugs I use a 24" scoped rifled bbl and sabot slugs that cost 3$ each, but can get 2" groups at 100 yds. another option are dixie slugs/buckshot at dixieslugs.com. they make a "tri ball" buckshot round that fires 3 - 70 caliber balls from a 3 1/2" shell that can be fired from a rifled bbl or smoothbore total wt of metal hitting animal with all 3 balls is over 2oz's ( 3- flying ashtrays in one shot) but they are not your usual soft lead or copper, they are very hard and designed for dangerous game in africa and alaska, so if you put them in a full choke you will probly end up with an even shorter bbl (FOLLOW INSTRUCTIONS CAREFULLY) they are priced lower than my sabots and ship free with every 10th or 11th box free. and they claim 4-6" groups at 40 yds. they also make slugs for rifled and or smoothbore. I've been dying to try them out but just blew 75$ on hornady 300gr sst slugs in 12 ga
I'm only looking for accuracy to 60-70 yards....do you guys think I'll get that with the current set-up?
