Remington 870 Mods for Home Defense
Remington 870 Express shotgun can be easily modified for home defense use. Home defense mods are following: tactical flashlight and clamp, sights, stock and forend, sidesaddle, sling etc.
You need to decide what accessories and upgrades are good for your home defense shotgun and which are not. There are too many Remington 870 tactical mods and it is important to choose the ones you need.
For example, Remington 870 bullpup conversion kit looks very cool but will it be much more convenient for home defense use?
Start with a tactical flashlight
So what are the best Remington 870 mods for home defense? As I always say, start with a flashlight. You can’t go wrong with that. You must be sure of your target, never shoot when all you can see is just a dark silhouette. Maybe it’s your wife which came to the kitchen to drink some water. Tactical flashlight enables you to clearly see your target and make right decision: to shoot or not to shoot?
Good flashlight costs from $50, it should be bright enough to see the target. But don’t buy too powerful flashlight because you may bling yourself when bright light reflects from the walls and ceiling. You may be surprised that leading flashlight manufacturers such as Surefire, Streamlight and others don’t add to much lumens to newer models. They know what are they doing, when flashlight is too bright it may blind you in close quarters.
You can never have too much ammo
It is good idea to store your Remington 870 shotgun unloaded. But you need to learn how to load it fast and also have enough ammo at hands. The worst idea is to search for a box of ammo in the dark.
There are many different ways to have ammo on your shotgun: shotshell sling, stock mount shell holder, receiver mount ammo holder. The best one is sidesaddle (receiver mount shell holder). It is very easy to load a shotgun when you have a sidesaddle. You can do it quick and on the move.
Sidesaddle enables you to make quick tactical and emergency reloads. You can do reloads using your weak hand, so you can still have your strong hand on the stock and you can press trigger as fast as possible.
And the best things is that no modifications needed. It it easy to install TacStar, Mesa Tactical or other sidesaddles but also very easy to remove them.
Internal mods that are very important for home defense Remington 870
There are two Remington 870 express mods that are very important: non-MIM extractor and better follower. These accessories can dramatically improve functioning of your home defense shotgun.
Standard extractor which is made using Metal Injection Molding is believed to be less sturdy than non-MIM extractor. You can buy non-MIM extractor made by Remington or Volquartsen Custom Extractor for the Remington 870. They are both good and high-quality products.
Non-MIM or Volquartsen Custom Extractor is more reliable and improves extraction of fired shells.
Leave MIM extractor for trainings, use upgraded non-MIM extractor for home defense.
Next internal upgrade is magazine follower. Factory follower is made of thin plastic and it may break at the worst moment possible. Steel or aluminum Remington 870 followers are much more reliable and ensure proper feeding which is extremely important for a home defense Remington 870 shotgun.
There are many good followers available on the market today. They are made by many big and small companies: Brownells, GG&G, Choate, etc. Make sure that you don’t forget about this inexpensive but very useful mod.