Remington 870 barrel

[Johnny C!]

I concur with LawDog.

#1 Buck. Gabe did a video a year or two ago
on that topic after a few of us mentioned our
affinity for it.

And rifle sights. I like the un-ambiguous sight
picture that they give me. That started out
years ago on my first 870's. They even work
for me when shooting recreational skeet.
I even have rifle sights on my Tac-14's as
back-ups for the RMR's. And they work
just fine at skeet, as well.

Just my simple minded .02.

That'll do. For defense, you'll probably run IC all of the time, but it can be fun to play around with a Mod choke just to see the difference.

Sights are very much a personal preference. I really like rifle sights on a shotgun, but I don't currently have one set up that way, and I'm not convinced that it's really the best idea--it's just what I like. You'll hear lots of votes for something like an express dot or for a ghost ring. And these days an RMR or Holosun might be the choice. (I wonder how the ring in a 508T lines up with the pattern. Hmmm.)

You might like an oversized safety. Alternatively, you might hate it.

But the first thing to do is buy a smorgasbord of shells and a long roll of butcher paper, and find a place to shoot where you don't have to call a cease-fire in order to change targets. To pattern a shotgun, I take a roll of 18" wide paper and cut it into 54" lengths, and then mark it out as three targets, each with a 1" aiming dot. Even with it tripled up, it still feels like all of the work is in changing targets, with very little shooting. But take notes on everything. See which ammo groups evenly and consistently, without fliyers. And figure out how much spread you want at a given distance. Personally, I tend to use #1 buck, with a couple of slugs set aside. I experimented with everything from #4 buck up to 000, and decided #1 gives me what I want. But that will change based on the ranges you are working with and the cover you've got to contend with.

That's about everything I know about shotguns, summed up in a paragraph, but there are several people here who have spent a lot more time than me with a "boomstick."

[USN-PO2]

I shoot clay sports 2-3 times a week. Mostly with over under Beretta's.
I do have a bunch of chokes that came with the original barrel. Some fairly tight ones. The club has a pattern board that will get used eventually.
The barrel came with a brass bead front sight, will probably stay that way, might add a magnetic fiber optic as I have a bunch laying around from before I swapped out the sights on my Beretta's to fiber optic beads.
Not looking to trick it out to much as my longest HD shot is less than 30'.
With cut shells even bird shot makes a big hole.

[LawDog]

With cut shells even bird shot makes a big hole.

While the idea of cut shells seems nifty, I would strongly discourage their use. If you lived somewhere that buckshot was criminalized, cut shells might be an alternative to consider. (If you really want to go down a weird rabbit hole, search around for some articles by a guy named Y-man, who lived in Africa and did some experiments in this area because of his local laws.) The big negative of cut shells is that they can cause malfunctions even in the most reliable of guns. The gun was designed to eject an entire shell; not a stump. Cut shells are neat trivia, but not truly useful for modern defense.

[USN-PO2]

While the idea of cut shells seems nifty, I would strongly discourage their use. If you lived somewhere that buckshot was criminalized, cut shells might be an alternative to consider. (If you really want to go down a weird rabbit hole, search around for some articles by a guy named Y-man, who lived in Africa and did some experiments in this area because of his local laws.) The big negative of cut shells is that they can cause malfunctions even in the most reliable of guns. The gun was designed to eject an entire shell; not a stump. Cut shells are neat trivia, but not truly useful for modern defense.

Oh, I've got plenty of buckshot and slugs that'll get run thru it before I resorted to any cut shells

[jlwilliams]

Cut shells are something people should know about just because it's cool to know. Improvisation is a good mental exercise. Same goes for "wax slugs", cool stuff to know how to do. It parts of Asia and Africa they are the baddest round a guy is likely to get his hands on. Playing around with that sort of shell modification gives one a sense of "man, I'm glad I'm not that third world motherhumper who HAS TO run this." But, yeah, good to know because resourcefulness is a resource.