New sights for 870 slug barrel

[Hunter125]

I am wanting to get some new sights for my slug barrel. I have passed on several shots before because of low visibility and want to get something more visible. I have tossed around the idea of a red dot or reflex sight, but am also looking at fiber optic replacement sights.

I was looking pretty hard at the Tru Glo fiber optic sights, but have read some bad reviews about their quality. What do you all think of these? Is there a better option, or should I just go with a red dot or reflex sight.

 

[Hunter125]

Nobody?

 

[farscott]

My slug barrel wears a scope for the same reason. I needed more light or more contrast on the front sight to accurately see the animal.

 

[Fred Fuller]

I found this style smoothbore barrel for my 11-87 when Remington closed them out (around the turn of the century), and did the same thing with it. Works well, with a cheekpiece added to the stock to get your eye up to the new line of sight. I like forward mount scopes, and they work well for me. Some people don't like them however. The new 'solid bridge' cantilever mount barrels, or a drilled and tapped receiver for conventional scope mount, will work for them.

Biggest thing is IMHO not to forget to add enough comb height to the stock to maintain a proper cheek weld for the newly elevated line of sight.

I also tried it with a Trijicon Reflex for a while, but preferred the scope.

Related article at http://www.no-treason.com/archived-site/laissezfirearm/870full.htm

hth!

 

[publiuss]

I like Fred's solution.

 

[Hunter125]

I never thought about a scout mounted scope on a shotgun. I've been interested in scout scopes, but have no experience with them. Can you just drill and tap tge barrel, or do you have to get a specially made barrel?

 

[Fred Fuller]

No, you can't D&T the barrel - even at shotgun pressures, that would be a Bad Thing. D&T the RECEIVER, yes, but not the barrel. If you have a good 'smith handy, you might be able to get a piece of steel rail (Weaver or Picatinny) silver soldered to your barrel, if you can work around any taper that might be there.

I was lucky to run across that barrel in years gone by, too bad there's no reliable source for them (that I know of) any more. It was a great proof-of-concept vehicle for a shotgun mounted scout scope and it works well, for anyone who likes LER/scout scopes.

 

[RMc]

Fred,

My smoothbore slug barrel set is identical to yours except that I found Remington made a lower set of rings, and managed to find a set. I have one of the older Burris 1.5X Scout scopes mounted with very little barrel clearance at the enlarged rear bell. I don't need a raised comb for this combination

Remington apparently set out to design a Scout Scope slug barrel, but it seemed like the marketing types wanted to hedge their bets. So a long, overly flexible, extension was added to make it work with regular eye relief scopes. The extension even had a rubber bumper to protect the top of the reciever! The sales hype was completely aimed at conventional scope mounting and the concept went downhill in sales.

The combination of low power intermediate eye relief "Scout" scopes for interchangeable barrel repeating shotguns was an outstanding concept that died due to poor marketing.

 

[RMc]

The Aimtech "Rib Ryder" mount appears to be the closest available option for a smoothbore slug/scout scope mount today.

http://www.aimtech-mounts.com/Rib Riders.htm

 

[Hunter125]

That's a really cool system. Seems like it would be pretty stable. It would be a pretty good option for a turkey gun or smooth bore deer gun.

I have a rifled barrel with rifle sights, anybody have a good option for improvement on those?

 

[Hunter125]

I was in Gander Mtn today looking for ammo, decided just to check their sights, see if they had anything for my 870. I ended up finding some Williams Fire Sights and put them on tonight. I'm planning on getting them out to the range next week to try them out, look good so far.

 

[RMc]

Another approach I have used is to open up the small "U" notch Remington rear sight into a wide square notch and replace the front sight with a Square post sight. The wide notch and post give a quick easy to see sight picture with an excellent index of elevation.