Building a shotgun from a reciever?

[Monkeybear]

Every once in a while I come across a shotgun receiver for sale and I wonder just how easy and inexpensive it would be to turn one of these into a functional firearm.

Is is smarter/cheaper to just buy a new one?

Good/fun way for someone to get their first shotty? You know by putting it together they learn how it works and all that.

Any opinions about buying just a receiver and then ordering all the parts?

 

[revjen45]

This delusion afflicts afficionados of automobiles, motorcycles, airplanes, boats, etc also. Such a project always costs a lot more than buying a good one, and is at last 5 times as much trouble as you think it will be in your deepest moments of pessimism.

 

[Capstick1]

Building a shotgun from just a reciever

In my experience you will spend more money buying all the parts you need than you would if you bought one that was already built. Now if you find a shotgun that's being sold pretty cheap because it has a broken bolt, stock, or trigger mechanism this might be worth buying because you won't have to buy so many parts. I don't know what kind of shotgun receiver you're talking about but if you want to get an idea of what you would have to spend on parts go to the Brownells web site and check out their prices for gun parts. There are some shotguns out there that are near impossible to find parts for. For example I have a Browning A500G. Browning replaced this model with the Browning Gold series of shotguns. It was only manufactured for a few years. If something ever breaks on this shotgun it probably won't be able to be repaired because you can't find parts for it anymore. Other than that it's a nice shotgun. Browning Auto5's/BPS's, Remington 11-87's/1100's/870's, and Benelli Black Eagle's/Super 90's are fairly easy to find parts for because they've been manufactured for a number of years in huge numbers and are easy to find parts for.

 

[zinj]

You'll spend more far more assembling such a gun from parts than just buying a new one.

 

[Fred Fuller]

I've done it a couple of times with 870s. Thing is, I have a parts box and a barrel box and am always on the lookout for realstealdeals on 870 bits and pieces. Both times I built up guns from parts, I didn't have to buy anything at all- everything came out of the boxes.

It'll almost certainly cost you more to build a parts gun than to buy a whole one. People are stripping guns now because they have discovered they can make more money selling the parts than selling a whole used or new gun. If you shop long and hard you might get a better deal than buying a good used example of whatever make/model you want- but I wouldn't count on it.

You can get all the familiarity you need with your shotgun by fieldstripping and cleaning it, there's no need to build it up from parts to "know it well." Settle on a particular make/model, learn what wears out/breaks on that make/model, and start building yourself a spare parts box.

It's true that even for lots of LEO 870 armorers their parts box is cigar-box size, not much breaks on 870s very often. It's safe to say I go overboard in the parts department, but I depend on a stable of 870s, and plan to keep them running till I am taking the dirt nap. Which is why I can still build another 870 Magnum out of my parts box without buying anything except a receiver- as if I NEEDED another 870 8^).

lpl/nc (...but there was a stripped 870 receiver on gunbroker for $49.95 the other day...)

 

[ArmedBear]

The thing is, unlike an AR or a 10/22, many of the parts are one-vendor (Mossberg in this case). You'll end up buying the same stuff, bit by bit, when the whole shotgun is available for 200 bucks.

In the case of a Mossberg, AFAIK, barrels are only made by Mossberg. For some other shotguns, you could get a nice aftermarket barrel from another maker. You could get a nice deer barrel, for example, or a straight-rifled shot barrel, but it wouldn't be cheaper, just "upgraded", if you wanted to build an 1100 or an A5.

What this might be good for is to upgrade a 500 to a 590. That would likely be more cost-effective than a from-scratch build.

 

[Dave McCracken]

Up in the floaters is a thread titled "A Kitchen Table 870", detailing the making of a parts 870 now called Frankenstein.

Note that I had everything except a receiver, trigger group and action bars on hand already.

 

[Monkeybear]

thanks for all your replys, guess its not such a good idea after all.