The Ultimate!

Blain · January 6, 2004, 08:18 PM

Introducing......a shotgun so great it can only be known as..... the Ultimate .

Features.....

- Remington 870 Super magnum
- 18 ½” Vang Comped Vent Rib barrel with Porting
-Chrome Lined Bore
- 2 round mag extension (can hold 6+1 2 ¾” or 3” shells and 5+1 3 ½” shells.
- Surefire Tac light
- MMC Ghost Ring Sights
- Trintium insert in front sight
- Robar's Rogaurd exterior and NP3 interior finish
- Side Saddle
- Knoxx Compstock
- Express' plastic trigger gaurd replaced with a metal one from a police magnum.
- Big Button safety
- Green vang comp follower
- 3 Point Tactical Sling

TrapperReady · January 7, 2004, 12:04 AM

It looks great! How does it shoot?

I'm interested to know how much blast you see coming up from the ports. I've only got one shotgun with them, but it's got 30" barrels and I run very light target loads through them, so it's not an issue.

Also, have you put enough shells through it to have an opinion on the durability of the light?

BTW, how many decibels does it put out when you shuck it?

Blain · January 7, 2004, 12:57 AM

Ok, I am going to give you the honest evaluation. The gun shoots great; better than great, actually. Very low recoil, it is easy to control. The sights make it easy to hit with. Shoots both very tight buckshot patterns and slug groups. With the old Estate ammo I got patterns of 4-6” at 30 yards. With my “duty load” of Wichester XX 12 pellet 00 I get patterns of around one foot at 30 yards. I could have picked an round with tighter patterning, but I like the spread, velocity, and pellet distribution that the 12 pellet 00 gives me.

The gun gives very fast velocities, actually, which surprised me since it has such a short barrel, and ported at that. It gives faster velocities than my 20” barreled 870s.

At night, the gun has a very low muzzle signature, actually. The porting actually helps to reduce the light exposure a great deal, which is one of the advertised effects, I was shocked at how well it worked. The down side of the porting is NOISE! Also, the venting upward gasses are hell on the finish of the vent rib, and the area around the porting needs to be scrubbed down because the gasses dirty it up. Not that it effects performance, but I like to keep my gun looking sharp.

The surefire light is very durable and I haven’t had many problems with it, except sometimes triggering the light inadvertently when pumping the gun, which is partly why I put the switch blocker on. It still happens sometimes, though. It fires and functions perfectly with non surefire bargain batteries too

It is a very nice gun, and I couldn’t dream of a better weapon for close quarters battle (except maybe a nice flame thrower). Inside 100 yards, I would take this gun into combat over any other.

however......

The gun's biggest problem is inherit in the 870 Super Magnum design itself, mainly the flimsy metal bolt cover that they use on it. Basically, Remington was too lazy to create a full size solid bolt for the 870 super mags, so they modified a regular 870 bolt and attached a flimsy metal covering to the end of it to cover the rest of the enlarged hole.

The 870 super magnum was created to be basically an 870 express which could accept 3 1/2" shells, they made it as similar to the original as possible even to the extent of not only using the same 870 bolt, but retaining the original receiver as well. Instead of lengthening the receiver they created a collapsible bolt that would collapse upon firing.

When the gun fires, the bolt with, it's extended cover, slams back against the rear of the receiver. The flimsy metal piece is attached with a spring and a few hooks, that’s it! When it contacts the rear of the receiver, the spring causes the metal piece to compress and slide over the side of the bolt. This picture will help illustrate.

The rear part of the bolt (with the brown wear lines running across) is the cover, see how there is a little groove/indentation between the cover and the bolt making it look like three pieces? That is where the cover slides up over during compression.

Now, under normal use this is fine and it actually functions without problem. Now, by normal use I mean magnum 3" buck and slugs.... Fairly heavy stuff. The problem can come from when you fire magnum 3.5" buckshot loads. This is the problem I experienced. I was test firing 3.5" buckshot shells and had fired 15 or so. I was firing custom loads, so they were slightly higher pressure than the normal ones. One of the rounds actually caused the bolt to slam the receiver too hard and the flimsy metal thing got bent out of operation. This caused the gun to be jammed until I could disassemble and remove the metal covering

Now, understand, the metal covering serves no real function except to help cover the hole and keep it clear of debree and to look good, as it looks funny with a big hole between the bolt and reciever. The gun can be fired without it just fine, though. I fired it and used it without the cover until Remington could send a replacement.

I had Remington order me another one and according to them, it is not a common problem, though I have heard of other instances of this part breaking from other boards. Robar was even nice enough to refinish it for free (they also finished the Surefire light screws in NP3 for free).

Anyway, long story short, the covering works fine with just about all shells, except the heavier 3.5" magnum loads. I would recommend removing it temporarily if one wanted to fire heavy custom 3.5" loads because it could break. It might not, but it could. If you don't plan to fire 3.5" buck loads, than it's a non issue.

Anyway, aside from that, the gun has had no problems to speak of.

The barrel of the gun actually dropped, muzzle down, from a height of around three feet onto a rough road. It hit hard on the front sight and tip of the bore and all the damage that resulted were some minor finishing scratches on the front sight and edge of the barrel. These were easily touched up, and it is impressive that it resisted such a blow so well.

Spark · January 7, 2004, 01:00 AM

Ultimate? Pshaw! You might as well put pink furniture on that kiddie gun.

Just kidding! Looks pretty good. I've been looking at one really similar to that with a speedfeed - looks like that's all you are missing.

Blain · January 7, 2004, 01:46 AM

I am not missing anything. If I had a speedfeed I wouldn't be able to use the knoxx recoil reducing stock, which works wonders! Believe me, the speedfeed was the stock I had in mind....before they developed the knoxx. I have both and my other combat 870 has the speedfeed, I prefer the knoxx, esp since I can still hold rounds on the gun with the side saddle. I don't want to weight the thing down too much.

Black Majik · January 7, 2004, 03:56 AM

Nice shotgun!

One thing I like a lot is the barrel! Wow... that's quite cool!

**Dr.Rob** · January 7, 2004, 06:56 PM

Those extra holes in the barrel will certainly attract attention.. I never understood the desire to do that. Makes it noisy.

Blain · January 7, 2004, 07:01 PM

They also make the gun recoil less, muzzle jump much less, and flash at night much less. No shotgun firing buck and slugs is going to be quiet. What difference does a few decibles of sound make? Either way it's going to hurt.

Denny Hansen · January 7, 2004, 07:13 PM

Very high on the "cool factor." Of course the real ULTIMATE would have SureFire's latest generation forend that has both momentary and constant on/off capability.

Denny

Blain · January 7, 2004, 07:18 PM

MY foreend has both momentary and on-off. The newer surefire is capable of accepting a brighter more powerful bulb. I might upgrade to that later on.

Denny Hansen · January 7, 2004, 07:19 PM

It has CONSTANT on capability? It sure looks like the older model.
http://www.surefire.com/maxexp/main/...r/92/sesent/00

Blain · January 7, 2004, 07:35 PM

You can clearly see the on/off switch in this picture.

Denny Hansen · January 7, 2004, 07:37 PM

Roger that. Nice set-up. You'll be real happy with the Robar finishes.
Good shooting!

Denny

Skunkabilly · January 7, 2004, 07:58 PM

Reason why Denny thought it was an older model is probably because for some reason your light (model 61?FA?) doesn't have the ribbed thingy on the lower portion of the light.

Blain · January 7, 2004, 08:16 PM

Yes, now how much are those attachments and where can one purchase them? You find it useful?

Skunkabilly · January 7, 2004, 08:20 PM

Blain, I'm not sure, it just came like that--they don't sell the older ones anymore--they look like yours minus the constant on/off. Maybe yours was some interim model, or an enhanced model that later got updated and became the standard? Call SureFire at 800.828.8809 (OMG I can't believe I memorize their number) and ask if you can by the ribbed thing. Looks like something you can glue on.

Correia · January 7, 2004, 11:55 PM

There is no ultimate weapon, only ultimate shooters.

Blain · January 8, 2004, 12:16 AM

Quote:

There is no ultimate weapon

Wrong.

Navy joe · January 8, 2004, 12:32 AM

There is no ultimate weapon. Especially one that jams with certain ammo.

Blain · January 8, 2004, 12:49 AM

Quote:

There is no ultimate weapon. Especially one that jams with certain ammo.

Name me one gun that WON'T jam with certain ammo. You give it to me and I'll build a pressure round to break/jam it.

Duke of Lawnchair · January 8, 2004, 12:54 AM

Quote:

Those extra holes in the barrel will certainly attract attention.. I never understood the desire to do that. Makes it noisy.

Makes it noisy...

I never understood that expression. It's a firearm.

BTW, Blain, I think you have a great boomstick. If you're happy with it, then rock on!

Correia · January 8, 2004, 10:44 AM

Wrong? Ok Blain, I expect to see you whipping the pants off of practical shotgunners everywhere.

Don't get me wrong, I love 870s and I think you have a fine speciman, but I cringe whenever I hear ultimate anything. Best shotgunning I've ever seen has been done with beat up old field guns, or battered PD trade in work horses. A basic shotgun in the hands of a superb shooter is going to be more effective than an ultimate tactical super dooper ultra magnum special in the hands of somebody who hasn't gotten as much trigger time.

laynlow · January 8, 2004, 10:56 AM

Quote:

Yes, now how much are those attachments and where can one purchase them? You find it useful?

Blaine,

You have an old style forend that is basic black and only has a momentary pressure pad. The new style featured in Skunk's picture have the light grey grip pad, a pressure pad, and either a constant on/off or constant on/off/disable switch. The only way to upgrade is to buy another forend.

Skunkabilly · January 8, 2004, 11:19 AM

laynlow if you see the picture up top of the gun leaning against the pi-annah, there's a rocker switch on the gun forend. I think maybe they started doing this before the new models became standard?

Navyjoe:
>> There is no ultimate weapon. Especially one that jams with certain ammo. <<

Did you think that was a Benelli?

Correia:
>> There is no ultimate weapon, only ultimate shooters. <<

I don't know about that either...all humans are..well...human

laynlow · January 8, 2004, 12:00 PM

Skunk,

I didn't notice that; I suppose it's possible. I have seen allot of the old style forends, but never one with a rocker.

January 6, 2004, 08:18 PM	#1
Blain member Join Date: January 17, 2003 Posts: 994	The Ultimate! Introducing......a shotgun so great it can only be known as..... the Ultimate . Features..... - Remington 870 Super magnum - 18 ½” Vang Comped Vent Rib barrel with Porting -Chrome Lined Bore - 2 round mag extension (can hold 6+1 2 ¾” or 3” shells and 5+1 3 ½” shells. - Surefire Tac light - MMC Ghost Ring Sights - Trintium insert in front sight - Robar's Rogaurd exterior and NP3 interior finish - Side Saddle - Knoxx Compstock - Express' plastic trigger gaurd replaced with a metal one from a police magnum. - Big Button safety - Green vang comp follower - 3 Point Tactical Sling

January 7, 2004, 01:00 AM	#4
Spark Member Join Date: December 25, 2002 Posts: 311	Ultimate? Pshaw! You might as well put pink furniture on that kiddie gun. Just kidding! Looks pretty good. I've been looking at one really similar to that with a speedfeed - looks like that's all you are missing. __________________ Kevin Jon Schlossberg http://www.bladeforums.com Only Sharp Knives are Interesting

January 7, 2004, 03:56 AM	#6
Black Majik Member Join Date: September 13, 2003 Location: Orange County, California Posts: 5,026	Nice shotgun! One thing I like a lot is the barrel! Wow... that's quite cool! __________________ -Richard

January 7, 2004, 06:56 PM	#7
Dr.Rob Moderator Join Date: December 23, 2002 Location: Denver, CO Posts: 6,934	Those extra holes in the barrel will certainly attract attention.. I never understood the desire to do that. Makes it noisy. __________________ Former TFL Moderator. "Guess you broke into the WRONG rec room!" ;)

January 7, 2004, 07:13 PM	#9
Denny Hansen Member Join Date: December 23, 2002 Location: Arizona Posts: 581	Very high on the "cool factor." Of course the real ULTIMATE would have SureFire's latest generation forend that has both momentary and constant on/off capability. Denny __________________ Stay low and watch your back. MOLON LABE! Proud TFL Alumnus

January 7, 2004, 12:04 AM	#2
TrapperReady Member Join Date: January 29, 2003 Posts: 2,732	It looks great! How does it shoot? I'm interested to know how much blast you see coming up from the ports. I've only got one shotgun with them, but it's got 30" barrels and I run very light target loads through them, so it's not an issue. Also, have you put enough shells through it to have an opinion on the durability of the light? BTW, how many decibels does it put out when you shuck it?

January 7, 2004, 12:57 AM	#3
Blain member Join Date: January 17, 2003 Posts: 994	Ok, I am going to give you the honest evaluation. The gun shoots great; better than great, actually. Very low recoil, it is easy to control. The sights make it easy to hit with. Shoots both very tight buckshot patterns and slug groups. With the old Estate ammo I got patterns of 4-6” at 30 yards. With my “duty load” of Wichester XX 12 pellet 00 I get patterns of around one foot at 30 yards. I could have picked an round with tighter patterning, but I like the spread, velocity, and pellet distribution that the 12 pellet 00 gives me. The gun gives very fast velocities, actually, which surprised me since it has such a short barrel, and ported at that. It gives faster velocities than my 20” barreled 870s. At night, the gun has a very low muzzle signature, actually. The porting actually helps to reduce the light exposure a great deal, which is one of the advertised effects, I was shocked at how well it worked. The down side of the porting is NOISE! Also, the venting upward gasses are hell on the finish of the vent rib, and the area around the porting needs to be scrubbed down because the gasses dirty it up. Not that it effects performance, but I like to keep my gun looking sharp. The surefire light is very durable and I haven’t had many problems with it, except sometimes triggering the light inadvertently when pumping the gun, which is partly why I put the switch blocker on. It still happens sometimes, though. It fires and functions perfectly with non surefire bargain batteries too It is a very nice gun, and I couldn’t dream of a better weapon for close quarters battle (except maybe a nice flame thrower). Inside 100 yards, I would take this gun into combat over any other. however...... The gun's biggest problem is inherit in the 870 Super Magnum design itself, mainly the flimsy metal bolt cover that they use on it. Basically, Remington was too lazy to create a full size solid bolt for the 870 super mags, so they modified a regular 870 bolt and attached a flimsy metal covering to the end of it to cover the rest of the enlarged hole. The 870 super magnum was created to be basically an 870 express which could accept 3 1/2" shells, they made it as similar to the original as possible even to the extent of not only using the same 870 bolt, but retaining the original receiver as well. Instead of lengthening the receiver they created a collapsible bolt that would collapse upon firing. When the gun fires, the bolt with, it's extended cover, slams back against the rear of the receiver. The flimsy metal piece is attached with a spring and a few hooks, that’s it! When it contacts the rear of the receiver, the spring causes the metal piece to compress and slide over the side of the bolt. This picture will help illustrate. The rear part of the bolt (with the brown wear lines running across) is the cover, see how there is a little groove/indentation between the cover and the bolt making it look like three pieces? That is where the cover slides up over during compression. Now, under normal use this is fine and it actually functions without problem. Now, by normal use I mean magnum 3" buck and slugs.... Fairly heavy stuff. The problem can come from when you fire magnum 3.5" buckshot loads. This is the problem I experienced. I was test firing 3.5" buckshot shells and had fired 15 or so. I was firing custom loads, so they were slightly higher pressure than the normal ones. One of the rounds actually caused the bolt to slam the receiver too hard and the flimsy metal thing got bent out of operation. This caused the gun to be jammed until I could disassemble and remove the metal covering Now, understand, the metal covering serves no real function except to help cover the hole and keep it clear of debree and to look good, as it looks funny with a big hole between the bolt and reciever. The gun can be fired without it just fine, though. I fired it and used it without the cover until Remington could send a replacement. I had Remington order me another one and according to them, it is not a common problem, though I have heard of other instances of this part breaking from other boards. Robar was even nice enough to refinish it for free (they also finished the Surefire light screws in NP3 for free). Anyway, long story short, the covering works fine with just about all shells, except the heavier 3.5" magnum loads. I would recommend removing it temporarily if one wanted to fire heavy custom 3.5" loads because it could break. It might not, but it could. If you don't plan to fire 3.5" buck loads, than it's a non issue. Anyway, aside from that, the gun has had no problems to speak of. The barrel of the gun actually dropped, muzzle down, from a height of around three feet onto a rough road. It hit hard on the front sight and tip of the bore and all the damage that resulted were some minor finishing scratches on the front sight and edge of the barrel. These were easily touched up, and it is impressive that it resisted such a blow so well.

January 7, 2004, 01:46 AM	#5
Blain member Join Date: January 17, 2003 Posts: 994	I am not missing anything. If I had a speedfeed I wouldn't be able to use the knoxx recoil reducing stock, which works wonders! Believe me, the speedfeed was the stock I had in mind....before they developed the knoxx. I have both and my other combat 870 has the speedfeed, I prefer the knoxx, esp since I can still hold rounds on the gun with the side saddle. I don't want to weight the thing down too much.

January 7, 2004, 07:01 PM	#8
Blain member Join Date: January 17, 2003 Posts: 994	They also make the gun recoil less, muzzle jump much less, and flash at night much less. No shotgun firing buck and slugs is going to be quiet. What difference does a few decibles of sound make? Either way it's going to hurt.

January 7, 2004, 07:18 PM	#10
Blain member Join Date: January 17, 2003 Posts: 994	MY foreend has both momentary and on-off. The newer surefire is capable of accepting a brighter more powerful bulb. I might upgrade to that later on.

January 7, 2004, 07:19 PM	#11
Denny Hansen Member Join Date: December 23, 2002 Location: Arizona Posts: 581	It has CONSTANT on capability? It sure looks like the older model. http://www.surefire.com/maxexp/main/...r/92/sesent/00 __________________ Stay low and watch your back. MOLON LABE! Proud TFL Alumnus

January 7, 2004, 07:35 PM	#12
Blain member Join Date: January 17, 2003 Posts: 994	You can clearly see the on/off switch in this picture.

January 7, 2004, 07:37 PM	#13
Denny Hansen Member Join Date: December 23, 2002 Location: Arizona Posts: 581	Roger that. Nice set-up. You'll be real happy with the Robar finishes. Good shooting! Denny __________________ Stay low and watch your back. MOLON LABE! Proud TFL Alumnus

January 7, 2004, 07:58 PM	#14
Skunkabilly Member Join Date: December 23, 2002 Location: Los Angeles, Untacticalifornia =( Posts: 9,730	Reason why Denny thought it was an older model is probably because for some reason your light (model 61?FA?) doesn't have the ribbed thingy on the lower portion of the light. __________________ http://www.skunkabilly.com If Chuck Norris and The Skunk logged onto THR at the same time, the servers would crash, for they could not contain that amount of pure awesome.

January 7, 2004, 08:16 PM	#15
Blain member Join Date: January 17, 2003 Posts: 994	Yes, now how much are those attachments and where can one purchase them? You find it useful?

January 7, 2004, 08:20 PM	#16
Skunkabilly Member Join Date: December 23, 2002 Location: Los Angeles, Untacticalifornia =( Posts: 9,730	Blain, I'm not sure, it just came like that--they don't sell the older ones anymore--they look like yours minus the constant on/off. Maybe yours was some interim model, or an enhanced model that later got updated and became the standard? Call SureFire at 800.828.8809 (OMG I can't believe I memorize their number) and ask if you can by the ribbed thing. Looks like something you can glue on. __________________ http://www.skunkabilly.com If Chuck Norris and The Skunk logged onto THR at the same time, the servers would crash, for they could not contain that amount of pure awesome.

January 7, 2004, 11:55 PM	#17
Correia Moderator Emeritus Join Date: December 20, 2002 Location: SLC Posts: 10,364	There is no ultimate weapon, only ultimate shooters.

January 8, 2004, 12:32 AM	#19
Navy joe Member Join Date: December 24, 2002 Location: VA Posts: 2,363	There is no ultimate weapon. Especially one that jams with certain ammo. __________________ FY47012 , Shut up and shoot. USPSA, NRA, VCDL

January 8, 2004, 10:44 AM	#22
Correia Moderator Emeritus Join Date: December 20, 2002 Location: SLC Posts: 10,364	Wrong? Ok Blain, I expect to see you whipping the pants off of practical shotgunners everywhere. Don't get me wrong, I love 870s and I think you have a fine speciman, but I cringe whenever I hear ultimate anything. Best shotgunning I've ever seen has been done with beat up old field guns, or battered PD trade in work horses. A basic shotgun in the hands of a superb shooter is going to be more effective than an ultimate tactical super dooper ultra magnum special in the hands of somebody who hasn't gotten as much trigger time.

January 8, 2004, 11:19 AM	#24
Skunkabilly Member Join Date: December 23, 2002 Location: Los Angeles, Untacticalifornia =( Posts: 9,730	laynlow if you see the picture up top of the gun leaning against the pi-annah, there's a rocker switch on the gun forend. I think maybe they started doing this before the new models became standard? Navyjoe: >> There is no ultimate weapon. Especially one that jams with certain ammo. << Did you think that was a Benelli? Correia: >> There is no ultimate weapon, only ultimate shooters. << I don't know about that either...all humans are..well...human __________________ http://www.skunkabilly.com If Chuck Norris and The Skunk logged onto THR at the same time, the servers would crash, for they could not contain that amount of pure awesome.

January 8, 2004, 12:00 PM	#25
laynlow Member Join Date: December 25, 2002 Posts: 129	Skunk, I didn't notice that; I suppose it's possible. I have seen allot of the old style forends, but never one with a rocker.

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