Q re: New to Me, Rem 870 Police Magnum.

[Jack19]

I recently picked up a very lightly used, if it's not new, 870P from a pawn shop.

The sight configuration confuses me in that it has rifle sights and a ghost ring. When you look through the rear mounted ghost ring, you see the rifle sight mid-way down the barrel and then the front sight.

Is this an odd setup? Would having a rifle sight and the ghost ring be something Remington shipped from the factory? The ghost right sight is marked "Iron Sight Gun Works" and the original box says it shipped with a ghost ring.

 

[cslinger]

Sounds like the original owner added the Ghostrings after he bought the gun which likely came with rifle sights. If possible I wouldn't pay attention to the rifle sight, if necessary remove it.

Chris

 

[dfariswheel]

It's even more probable that the earlier owner wanted the ghost ring original barrel and switched it for a standard rifle sighted barrel.

If you want to ADD ghost ring sights to a barrel that has standard rifle sights, it's a problem since the sights are brazed on the barrel.

This makes removing the standard sights so the ghost ring sights can be installed, difficult.

Probably, the original owner wanted the ghost ring barrel for another gun, and just dropped in whatever rifle sighted barrel he could find to replace it.

Since the rear sight base on the barrel is brazed on, removing the base will be difficult.
I'd suggest just removing the sight blade and windage and elevation assembly, and leave the base in place.

 

[Jack19]

dfaris, I think you hit the nail on the head.

I've removed the rear rifle windage sight blade but am having trouble figuring out how to remove the elevation base.

Any ideas?

 

[dfariswheel]

Depends on the type sight you have.

Most factory rifle sights made in the last 20 or 30 years have a slotted screw or an Allen head screw on the right rear of the elevation slide.
Loosen the screw and the slide will slip right off the base.

With that off, the main base is left on the barrel.
This base is high-temp brazed on the barrel.

There are two methods of removing the factory brazed-on base.

First is to heat the barrel until the high temp braze melts and allows lifting the base off.
This takes red heat, and destroys the finish.
After the base is off, you have to clean up the remaining braze by filing and fine grinding.
Then you have to refinish the barrel, and polish out the bore.
Heating the barrel this hot is not something I liked doing. It may not be bad for the barrel, but it sure isn't good for it.

Second method is to cut the base off.
You use a fine hacksaw to cut off as much as you can, then use files and light grinding to remove everything else.
When it's off and cleaned up, there'll be a bare spot on the barrel where the base was.
You can either cold blue it, or have the barrel refinished.

One more option, is to buy a new Remington ghost ring barrel, and sell the one you have now to help fund it.

In the case of your present barrel, BEFORE removing the base, I'd shoot the gun.
I'm not sure that the factory front sight you have now will be tall enough to work with the ghost rear.
No sense messing up the barrel only to find it won't work anyway.

 

[riverdog]

If I was in your position with an 870P needing a real barrel, I might be forced to call Mr Vang and get one of his barrels set up for Ghost Ring sights. If I had an 870P. . .

 

[Fred Fuller]

Sounds to me like a barrel swap happened before you got the gun.

Once you get the whole adjustable part of the rear sight off, and replace the 'issue' front sight blade with one tall enough to work with a ghost ring rear, then you shouldn't see the rear sight base at all. Remington uses their standard front sight base with a couple of ghost ring sight setups, so there has to be a blade out there that will fit it properly. And they are not that hard to change. (Just remember, out from left to right, in from right to left.)

The less you muck about with the sight bases that are already on that barrel, the better off you will be IMO. If it really gets under your skin to have an unutilized sight base on your barrel, then sell the barrel as is and buy a plain 18- 18.5" bead sighted barrel and have the proper front sight blade installed thereon.

Good luck with it no matter what you decide,

lpl/nc