Shortening or cutting a Remington 870 barrel is one of the coolest mods out there. It’s pretty straight forward: take a factory 28” or 30” vent rib barrel, cut it to 18.5” or so, ream it, tap it again for Remchoke at the shorter length, add a tactical front sight bead, and walla! you have a barrel that can do it all.
Now some will challenge this and say “do it all?” are you Sure?. Well, let’s put it this way…I’ve used mine to shoot skeet (and win) in the morning, and (after changing chokes) shot slugs in the afternoon. That’s the beauty of chokes ain’t it?
So many “tactical” barrels lack this critical feature (removable chokes). They work really well for some loads (i.e. breaching rounds, slugs, 00 Buck), but lack the ability to be used for, say, ducks. Quack quack.
But what about length and velocity loss? Well, typical 12ga loads don’t really loose any velocity until you go shorter than about 14” - which requires special arrangements with uncle sam. A legal 18.5” barrel will retain all it needs to get the job done. So will a 20” barrel if that’s your fancy.
One advantage of the Remington 870 is the ease of changing barrels - but why would you want to have a barrel collection if you don’t have to? Have that factory Remington 870 barrel cut and be done with it.
