how to mount a light on my 870

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hnm201

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I recently bought a remington 870 magnum, 18.5" barrel

The only mods that I want to run are a recoil pad and sling, a 4-shell side saddle and a light.

How do I attach a light? All of themounts that I can find require a mag extension. Will I need a mag extension to mount a light? I don't really feel that I need one.

I don't want to expend one shell slot of my four in the side saddle for a mount shaped like a shell.

I'd appreciate hearing your recommendations.
 
The same system that mounts to a magazine extension can be use to do a barrel mount - Such as the TacStar sytem which allows you to use a mini-mag flashlight. They make mounts to fit anything from a 22 rifle barrel up through 12 ga.

There are also after market replacement forearms that have either places to mount a flashlight in them, or have a built in flashlight.
 
I am leaning towards the Surefire forend solution.

However, I can't find out how long these forends are. Are they shorter than the stock (long) fore-end? Will they allow cycling with a six-slot side-saddle installed?
 
The SureFire fore-end is the "police" length fore-end type, short enough to work with a six shot SideSaddle. It's "THE" weaponlight for shotguns...

The CORE mount from www.sidearmor.com also works well and requires no losing of shells...I think it works without the mag extension.
 
Yes, I have a Surefire forend with a Sidesaddle mounted and it works fine.

Something to consider and I am just repeating what I have heard: I am no light or shotgun expert but have read a little bit about them. Word has it that the recoil of a shotgun is extremly abusive to a light. Mounts fail, bulbs break etc. A shotgun is supposidly the most demanding application for a light. Many people get by with mickey mouse lash ups on their AR15s etc. but word has it, that this won't fly with a shotgun.
 
444

I was wondering about this myself. I wondered if the Surefire forearm would be more resilient or if an LED light would withstand the recoil better than an incadescent. I am still trying to gather data.
 
Well, what I was getting at is that for me, I want a Shotgun light that was designed and built to be a shotgun light. I don't want to try to clamp a flashlight onto it and hope for the best.
When I was taking Gunsite's 260 Defensive Shotgun class, the instructor was Louis Awerbuck. For many years I have considered Louis to be the shotgun guru. He mentioned during the class that he has been using Surefire forends since they first came out. He says he has used every model they ever made, and he uses his shotguns a lot. He makes his living instructing shotgun classes. Anyway, he said he has never broken a bulb in one of his Surefire dedicated forends. He says that this is unusual because he has seen many bulbs go out during his classes, but he personally has never had a bulb failure in his Surefire forends. The reason this came up is because Surefire includes a threaded plug with the light that you can use instead of the light, so you don't run the risk of damaging your light in training. In other words, If you know you aren't going to need your light, you unscrew the light from the forend and replace it with a metal plug. Louis was saying it is probably a good idea, but he doesn't use it and never did.
 
Interesting.

Impact guns has the basic SureFire 870 forend on sale for $179.99

http://www.impactguns.com/store/Surefire_sf618fa.html

Has anyone done business with them?

The Surefirewebsite says that this foreend light uses a 6v battery which is really just two CR123 lithium batteries in a plastic sleeve. IS the sleeve used to keep the batteries from shifting during recoil? If so I wonder if you could remove the sleeve from the OEM battery and stuff in two of your own CR123 batteries.
 
Yes, the sleeve is used to keep the batteries from shifting during recoil.
I have never replaced the batteries in my shotgun light. I really haven't had it that long. I don't anticipate using a lot of batteries in it. The only times I have really used it was during the two classes I took that had a night shoot that was a couple hours using the light for a total of probably less than a couple minutes. So, I am not worried about trying to save a few bucks in batteries. I will probably change out the batteries annually just to make sure they are good. That being said, I am sure that if you found the price of batteries to be an issue, you could save a little money by using regular batteries and maybe putting some heat shrink on it or something. You could probably get by with just using the batteries as is. I don't know, but I bet Surefire just wants to ensure the light works when you need it. For training or whatever I would think you could get by with just using two batteries.
I do have a spare battery and a spare lamp that I keep in my shooting bag for all my lights.
The nice thing about the Surefire shotgun light is that you know you are getting a top of the line light and it isn't all that expensive. Yes, it is more expensive than a flashlight and it is certainly more expensive than some half baked lash up, but in comparison to their other weaponslights, it is cheap. I paid twice as much for the light on my AR (900 series light).
 
Impact guns...

Is currently backordered on the Surefire (I have an order waiting to be filled). Last week they told me it would be about another 2 weeks.
 
The Surefirewebsite says that this foreend light uses a 6v battery which is really just two CR123 lithium batteries in a plastic sleeve. IS the sleeve used to keep the batteries from shifting during recoil? If so I wonder if you could remove the sleeve from the OEM battery and stuff in two of your own CR123 batteries.
Click to expand...
I wondered the same thing. The general take is this: yes, it is the same darned thing, and yes, the sleeve is to keep the batteries from banging around under recoil. What I do is remove the packaged batteries, replace with 2 CR123s for range use and practice. then, when I'm done, I replace the two CR123s and put back in the Surefire battery pack. this way I know I have a fresh set of batteries, properly packaged, and the batteries I'm using and beating up under recoil are the standard, cheaper variety.

Note: These 'practice' CR123s have seen a bit of repeated recoil, and still seem to work OK. I also give the thumbs up to the Surefire forend. Quality stuff. KISS.

Mike
 
Last edited:
To clarify:

the Surefire batteries are essentially shrink-wrapped together. You couldn't get them out of the sleeve without ruining the sleeve. Just remove the whole thing for range work and replace it when your gun goes back into cruiser ready. Or, from my ongoing experiement, you could always just forget about it and just cycle the batteries through as needed. ;)

Mike
 
There is a post in "Retail Feedback" blasting ProductWizard. I called them too about the fore-end and they are out of stock as well.
 
http://www.popguns.com/ had a couple of 618FAs on their shelf this past weekend.

I have a 918FA and I use 3 CR123s in it rather than the Surefire battery stick. The sticks contain fiber washers that are supposed to keep the batteries from banging in to one another during recoil, washers that can easily be removed and placed between normal 123s.

Seems to work just fine so far.
 
the Surefire batteries are essentially shrink-wrapped together. You couldn't get them out of the sleeve without ruining the sleeve. Just remove the whole thing for range work and replace it when your gun goes back into cruiser ready. Or, from my ongoing experiement, you could always just forget about it and just cycle the batteries through as needed.

Mike
Click to expand...

Wow, zombie thread alert...just in case anyone's reading this today (2010), SureFire discontinued that battery assembly some time ago. Refill with 2x 123 primaries now.
 
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