Question for folks with Rem 870 HD guns

[Greg_TX]

What is the O.D. of your barrel at the end where a sight would be mounted? I want to get a set of ghost ring sights, or any rifle sights for that matter, but the only ones that have a clamp-on front sight are for the 870. Can these be made to fit a Mossy? What's the difference if not?

[Lee Lapin]

The two Express guns (20" RS barrels) and one Police Gun (18" bead sight barrel) easily accessible here in 12 ga. run about .885- .890" or so as far as barrel OD goes. The only Mossberg that's handy here is a 930, OD on its 18.5" bead sight barrel is .852".

Utilitarian dial or digital calipers don't cost a whole bunch these days...:D And the best bet for attaching a front sight is still to get it silver soldered on. fwiw-

lpl

[Hungry Seagull]

My front sight of the Remington 870 seems silvered on by the factory.

My wife's Mossberg 500 has two bead sights already on the rib above the barrel itself.

There are some heat shields already equippted with ghost ring sights on rhe rear and you may find it to line up with your reciever top nicely that way.

That is all on topic information I know to address your specific questions. Both guns have a rail drilled and tapped into the reciever and they have a reflex or laser emitter on to assist in aiming. In our HD thinking, we are not going to enjoy too much time to carefully sight through the sights themselves.

We happen to have one inch tatical rails to either side onto brackets from a third party installed on both guns to hold a bright light to kill the badguy's night vision. Both guns had the brackets either at the forward extension tube or near the moss's own end tube screw.

We at one time tried very large and heavy tri-rails on our own, we soon tire when holding guns up with that turkey hanging off the end.

Good luck and enjoy your new upgrades.

[Greg_TX]

It's sort of a 'one thing leads to another' kind of thing. The length of pull on the factory stock was too long for me - by about 1.5" - and I couldn't bring it to my shoulder cleanly. I bought an adjustable stock, but the drop of the comb isn't as much as the factory one and I have a hard time sighting down the barrel now. I'm looking for some sights that sit higher to fix that.

So I've been looking around for options and there's so much more for the Remington that I wondered if some parts could be adapted to the .86" barrel of the Mossy. I guess I'll have to go the 'smith route since I want a matched set that works correctly. Mossberg makes a factory set, and I think barrels with a sight already installed, but they're out of stock and it's hard to find a set elsewhere.

I thought about other optics but prefer the simplicity of plain sights - I don't want to fiddle with anything in a real SD/HD situation at 3:30 am. Sorry for the long-winded post - just wanted to clarify what I'm trying to do here and why. Thank you all for the info so far.