My 870 Tactical shoots slugs WAY too high. What's up with that???

[soonerboomer]

I have a Remington 870 Tactical like THIS ONE. I purchased it for Home Defense, Turkey, and Deer.
I took it out to the range the other day and shot slugs at a life size human silhouette target. I shot at only 25 yards and ended up with a nice group right in the head. The problem?... I was aiming at the chest, about 12 inches lower.
This gun is factory fitted with XS ghost ring/big dot sights. The rear ghost is adjustable for both windage and elevation. Even with the rear ghost ring in its lowest possible position, I was still hitting about 12 inches too high at 25 yards. The front sight is not adjustable.
What's going on here? Could the sights be this far off? I was using Remington 2 3/4" one ounce rifled slugs. While the gun comes with that silly "breaching" choke, I had a regular Improved Cylinder choke tube in the gun.
Any recommendations/advice would be appreciated.
I have a feeling this one is going back to the factory, but I thought I'd ask here first. On a related note, I continue to be disappointed with recent Remington quality.
Thanks for your help.

 

[toivo]

My first thought is to experiment with some different slugs to see if you can find anything that works better. Second would be to figure out a way to get a higher front sight on there. You say it's not adjustable, but is it dovetailed in so that it can be replaced?

A quick-and-dirty fix is to put a piece of heat-shrink tubing -- preferably in a nice bright color like orange -- over the front sight and shrink it into place. Start off with a really long piece and then trim it down until the slugs are hitting where you want them. It won't last forever, but you can buy enough heat-shrink tubing for a few bucks to keep you in ersatz front sights forever.

 

[Virginian]

My first thought is to get someone else to shoot it and see if they get similar results. Different people's eyes see differently. When shooting a revolver with the same loads I have often had to crank the sights to get it shooting dead on for another person. If it's off for them too, then I would talk to Remington about getting it corrected.

 

[dprice3844444]

shoot the gun with buck and compare,other wise,because of the heavy recoil,aim lower

 

[okiewita40]

Have one of these at work only it is a full cylinder bore with no way for a choke tube to be put into it. You could try getting a different barrel with just the rifle sight and a full cylinder bore and see if the helps. Otherwise I would send it back and have remington fix it.

 

[Sam1911]

I've had the XS sights do that on other firearms. I'd call them and ask if they can supply a taller front sight. You should be able to be on target with the rear sight having at least some adjustment left in either direction.

 

[bushmaster1313]

Is your cheek welded to the stock when you shoot?

 

[RaceM]

Try changing your sight picture by placing the top of the front sight at or near the bottom of the ghost ring.

 

[Sam1911]

Try changing your sight picture by placing the top of the front sight at or near the bottom of the ghost ring.

While that may work with some sight arrangement, it really misses the principle of ghost ring or aperture sights completely.

The rear aperture should be close enough to the eye that it "ghosts" out. You shouldn't even really see it. The eye will naturally center in that circle of light created by the rear sight opening. When you look through that opening, you see only the front sight and target.

Trying to visualize the rear sight well enough to adjust the front sight's location within it is applying V-notch (Patridge) sight techniques to a completely different sighting system. Actually, it shouldn't even be possible to do.

There are some "sort-of" aperture sight systems available as retrofits (like the Mojo sights) which drop a round opening into the same location (forward, on the barrel usually) where the original v-notch open rear sight was located. These are too far forward and do not work as aperture sights at all. They're simply a different kind of open sight and lead to some misunderstandings about how apertures work.

The XS Sights, like the Williams and many other true aperture sight systems (or the sights on 1903A3s, Enfields, M1 Garands, M14s, M1 Carbines, AR15/M16/M4s, etc.), mount far back on the receiver (some even on the stock tang of lever rifles, behind the receiver) so that they are almost touching the eye. With these proper apertures, making a correction by adjusting the front sight's position within the view of the rear sight simply isn't possible.

 

[Sam1911]

This is a traditional open sight sight picture with a 6 o'clock hold:



This is a representation of an aperture sight picture, though the hazy black circle could be drawn much wider:



The "Mojo" style sights create a sight picture something like this:


As the rear sight is too far forward, you can bring it into focus and can adjust it's position relative to the front sight.

But that isn't the way the XS ghost ring set up should work.

 

[Utah Shotgunner]

How fast are the loads you are shooting?

Faster will hit lower.