Remington 870 All Kitted Up

Lipstick on a pig

Every good gun collection should have at least one shotgun in it. Why not an 870? The Remington 870 is one of the most common pump-action shotguns out there with no end of accessories, add-ons, and upgrades. You can find a version of your liking a lot easier than finding ammo for your AR-15 these days. Versions vary from traditional wood furniture to camo'd up duck slayers. I picked this one up more than a year ago and began to kit it up.

The first thing that had to go was the tupperware-like stock and fore grip. A Mesa Tactical collapsible stock kit as near an AR-15's buffer tube was added which married up with a Magpul CTR stock. The Mesa kit came with a Hogue overmolded pistol grip. Next, a rail was added across the top of the receiver to hold an optic, another Mesa Tactical product. The fore grip was replaced with a tri-rail system from SureFire. Attached to it is another Magpul item, AFG grip. The sighting system is a JP Enterprises J-Point red dot. I really like JP stuff. I have a lot of their products on my collection of AR-15s.

Even with all these black accessories, I still managed to shoot trap with it a few times. As you could imagine with such a short barrel and no choke, the pattern was huge even at 30 feet. The awesome thing about an 870 like I said, is there's no shortage of parts. The second time out trap shooting, I had a longer barrel with a modified choke. Barrels are pretty easy to swap out with no tools needed for the 870. That really helped me clean up on the range. The 870 is to shotguns what Glocks are to pistols. It's a good home defense gun, too.