Chokes for a Remington 870 18.5" "Police Barrel"

[numaone]

Fellows,
I am getting ready to purchase an 18.5" barrel for my Remington 870 Express. There are a variety of fixed chokes, any recommendations? It's a multipurpose camping/SD/HD setup. I've seen Cylinder, Improved Cylinder, and Full Chokes. Can you fire a slug out of a full choke?

What's the best way to remove the factory sight, and then attach a front sight to a barrel?

If I were to add ghost ring sights, I think I would have to drill and tap the receiver. I have access to a machine shop, is this something I can do myself? I am pretty adept at drilling and tapping steels.

Thanks for the help
Numaone

 

[Fred Fuller]

Often the best results with rifled slugs are out of ImpCyl chokes. Given the variety of buckshot available these days, you can pretty well pick your pattern by changing loads- choke doesn't mean as much as it did even a few years ago where buckshot is concerned.

Front sights on shotguns with GR's need to be silver soldered on, IMHO. Otherwise they may depart for parts unknown. With any sight installation, layout is the critical thing. Everything needs to line up properly.

hth,

lpl

 

[RSVP2RIP]

I would have the sight installation done if it were me. A profesional can make it look way better than me, I can do it, but I would scratch it and get frustrated, hurry, etc. Since it is a little more complicated and will most likley require refinishing the barrel, the small cost of the 'smith is worth it. A slug can go out any choke constiction as it is very undersized and/or has very compressable vanes on the outside. Like Lee said, best accuracy is out of very open chokes, but oddly, improved cylinder seems to work the best in the majority of cases for Foster style slugs (Winchester, Remington, Federal etc.) I wouldn't hesitate to get a set of choke tubes, either 3 or 6. Skeet I, ImpCyl, Mod for a 3 choke set. Skeet I and II, ImpCyl, Mod, Imp Mod, and Full for a 6 choke set. You could add cylinder and rifled if you want to get crazy, or extra full if you think you need it. Most people wil over choke for any given situation and it seems that if you are going to pick a choke tube go one step more open than you think is nessasary until you get the hang of it. You should pattern all the choke tubes with what you plan on using and then a varriety of different loadings. If you have 6 chokes this is going to take a long time. If I were going to pick one choke and leave it in the gun forever it would be Improved Cylinder. It's open enough for close things and when you have to shoot far like at ducks or geese, use steel as it will pattern alot more tightly than lead. It can turn the IC into a IM in some cases. Check out http://www.trulockchokes.com/cgi-bin/eShop/index.cgi

They have very competitive prices and I use them. Sometimes they have sales and you can get a set of 5 and the 6th one is free.