Wilson Combat Remington Steal M870

Welcome to THR! Your first post is just fine.

Wilson will make you a great shotgun, but you don't need to spend that kind of money. Unless you need your gun refinished, you can do most of the rest yourself for a good deal less money.

What do you want the shotgun to do for you? That will dictate what you need to do to it.

If money is not an factor, go with the Wilson ( IMHO ). Wilson will give you an excellent finished gun and on going support.

OR, if you are good at working on things, the 870 platform is easy to fix up via some good You Tubes ( search Remington 870 at You Tube ) and online help from the gun boards like in here.

Good luck bro!

TK

Welcome to the forum. For your first post you did very well. If I were to send it off to do a "re-fit" there are two places I would send it. Wilson is one the other is Remington. Who better to work on it than the manufacturer? If you are handy with tools and can do it yourself there are many places that can supply parts. Two that come to mind are Brownell's and Numrich Arms. They are highly reputable companies and recommended by many gunsmiths and others who work on guns.

Whether to sell it or not is your decision- I wouldn't want to be without a good shotgun myself.

If the shotgun is still mechanically sound, there's no reason to send it off for work IMHO- depending on what you want done to it, of course. It's so easy to swap furniture and add most of the worthwhile accessories to 870s, there's no reason not to DIY in many cases. What state is the gun in now, and what do you want to change about it?

And don't worry, the question is just fine... welcome to THR!

lpl

It sounds like someone did cut your barrel down, and I'd LOVE to have it!

If I kept it, I would at a minimum want new furniture and a good check by a gunsmith.

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That's a good plan.

Aside, I've been looking for a hacked up 870 barrel for not a lot of money. If you buy a replacement barrel, let me know and I'll send some cash your way.

Personally if the shotgun is primarily for home defense the 2 3/4" shells wll do just fine. After you shot about 5 - 10 full power buckshot your shoulder may be somewhat tender. Check out the low recoil buckshot from Federal. I have been in private security and police work for 30 years and all the shotguns I have used were 2 3/4" chambered. We never had any trouble with them. The 3" rounds were mostly designed for hunting. They will give further distance particularly for high flying birds. Have Wilson do the refit but there is no need to do a 3" conversion on a home defense gun. Also the 2 3/4" shells are slightly cheaper and easier to find in my experience.

Personally if the shotgun is primarily for home defense the 2 3/4" shells wll do just fine.

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+1 to Black Knight. 2 3/4" is just fine for HD work. 3" shells are punishing.

I looks like Wilson main selling point is a new paint job and synthetic furniture. I've only seen one 870 need a repair for a worn/broken part (my cousin's 870) and that was only after he had it 15 years and fired over 10,000 rounds of various 12guage types.

I do like the ghost ring sights though, but not at those prices.

As much as I like Wilson Combat that seems like overkill for your shotgun, and doesn't really seem to improve it much:

They replace the furniture with factory synthetic furniture, which IMO is cheap feeling and throws off the balance
They replace the mag spring with a factory one and follower (I'd rather just get their +2 extension which comes with their high-viz follower)
Convert it to fire 3" shells (I would not use 3" for a H.D. role, heck the reduced recoil stuff is sufficient, why use shoulder busters). Have you patterned the gun with the barrel it has now?
Replace the safety with current design (I don't know what the difference is. An overized safety button? If you want want one go for it but you don't need them to do it)
Strip and parkerize (if the finish on it is fine I wouldn't bother but this would at least give it the cool wilson combat green look )
Replace trigger assembly (not sure what's wrong with the factory one, I wouldn't want a crisp 2lb trigger on a shotgun unless it's for competition)

What I would do with it:
I'd have a gunsmith go over the gun, slick up the action if you desire.

Pattern it with the barrel it has and see if it's good at the range you'll be using it at. If it's screwy, get a replacement 18" cylinder bore barrel.

Get some furniture you like (I went through several factory and aftermarket stocks, settled on a youth synthetic stock for the short length of pull, and a surefire foreend for target ID). Limbsaver recoil pads are wonderful.

If the finish isn't rusted I wouldn't bother with refinishing. But if it is, or you want to change it, there are plenty of purdy colors available.

The factory mag spring and follower are probably in fine condition but if you want to change it, I do like wilson's springs and high viz followers (which come with their extended magazine tubes if you want more capacity)

Anyway, that's my opinion. They do good work so I don't think you'd be wrong to go with them, but if you like to tinker with guns you could do the same thing yourself and save some $$.

However, I just read about Wilson Combats Remington Steal refit package and it seemed like a decent deal. I would like to know what you guys think. Should I sell for whatever ($100) and start over or invest 3-$400 for the refit?

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My opinion:

• Replace all worn and/or damaged parts -What worn or damaged parts? You said you hardly used this shotgun
• Convert to 3" (if applicable) -You bought it in 1994, so isn't it 3" already?
• Convert shell feed to flexitab anti-jam system -I think your 1994 870 should have this already, too
• Install new Factory Remington synthetic buttstock and fore grip -You can buy these separate for $50, I think. But why would you want them?
• Install new factory Remington magazine spring and follower -What's wrong with your magazine and follower? Answer: nothing
• Replace safety with current design -Is something wrong with your safety? Nope.
• Strip and parkerize all external parts -Yours is already parkerized. If you hardly used it, it can't be badly worn
• Replace trigger assembly with a professionally remanufactured trigger group -There's nothing wrong with your trigger group

This package will not improve your shotgun one bit. For the price, "steal" is the right word for it.

What Sgt. Sabre said. You can buy a "previously enjoyed" barrel at 18 1/2" or 20" for around $100 or less, and pick up some wood or synthetic stocks for $50 or under. If you want new springs (magazine, lifter, sear), they're only a few bucks, and there are video's out there to show how to change the sear and lifter springs easily (if I can, anyone can). Your 870 will then be ready to give you tens of thousands of rounds of service.

I bought a very used police 870, replaced the barrel, stocks and springs and have a great gun that will outlast me, and patterns as well as one could want, all for around $200.

If you take off the wood before you send it to them you can sell the stock & forearm on EvilBay and recoup some of the cost of the Wilson Steal deal.

I have a buddy who has had at least four 870's done over the years and they come out pretty nice.
Unfortunately, two of them also didn't work when they came back home.

Simple stuff like the follower stickeng in the mag tube cause the demples were not completely removed by Wilson, and another one with a loose forend nut I had to tighten.

Still in all, I think it is worthwhile if you want to upgrade the gun to todays standards, and get a very nice refinish job and new synthetic furnature in the process.

rc

An older Wingmaster in good mechanical condition with a properly shortened barrel (the re-installation of the bead makes me think this one was probably done correctly), even with the double PG furniture, should fetch a couple hundred dollars easily. For me the PG stuff would be gone ASAP and a set of takeoff Police gun walnut installed. Then the gun would get patterned and checked for POA/POI (point of aim/point of impact) correlation, if that all worked out then I'd probably call it good to go.

Modern short (18.5") barrels from Remington have a 'bead on a block' arrangement that helps keep a shortened plain barrel from shooting high. Shortening a barrel changes the height relationship of the bead and the top of the receiver and for some shooters this causes the shortened to shoot higher with the same 'sight picture' that was used on the longer barrel. If it hits where it looks, no problem. If it hits high for you, it might need a block added under the bead (see the second picture in the article at http://www.policeone.com/police-pro...0791-Sighting-Systems-For-The-Police-Shotgun/ ). It could be that replacing the cut-down barrel with a factory Police gun takeoff that already has the block in place would be a cheaper/easier approach. As a plus, the factory Police barrels, even if marked as CYL, often have a few points of choke cranked in at the factory to even out patterns. Also, most of Remington's current short barrels (18.5- 20") have ImpCyl chokes from the factory.

For an older gun I might change out the magazine spring and perhaps the follower if needed. The item at http://www.brownells.com/1/1/22170-...-xp-magazine-spring-w-follower-brownells.html is the one I habitually use when these parts need to be replaced on a gun with a standard length magazine.

I wouldn't worry about being able to shoot 3" in a HD gun. It isn't needed. Most of what that gun needs is trigger time, to make the shooter effective...

lpl