Can You Drill Out Magazine Dents in 870 Express

You know 'em, y'all honey 'em…its the Remington 870 shotgun. A fine scattergun that is so widely represented in this land that yous'd have to expect pretty hard to find a police department that didn't have them as the 'standard' shotgun. Reasonably affordable, well built, and the target of a huge accompaniment market, pretty much every survivalist has one. (Although, to be fair, Mossberg's 500 series is probably an extremely shut second-identify finisher in this.)

A standard accessory that nigh folks drop onto their 870 is a magazine tube extension. After all, no one always had a sudden trigger-happy emergency and thought 'man, I wish I had one or two less shells in this thing.' Information technology used to be that adding a mag extension was equally simple as unscrew mag endcap, remove former bound and follower, drop in follower and new spring, screw extension onto end of magazine tube…done. Unfortunately, a while back, the guys at Remington, for whatever reason, added two 'dimples' in the magazine tube. If you add a magazine extension, the dimples volition keep the follower from traveling by those dimples.

Thus, if yous want to add an extended mag to your 870, and your magazine tube has those dimples, you're going to have to remove them. There are two methods for doing this:

1. 'Press out' the dimples. This is oftentimes done by shoving a socket (from a socket wrench set) of apprpriate diameter down the magazine tube and using it as an anvil to printing out the dimples with a c-clamp or hammer. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, and sometimes you have a hell of a fourth dimension removing that socket from the magazine tube.
2. Drill out the dimples. Easy, fast, and unremarkably problem free.

Today, I went with option #2 . (Past the mode, you tin can Google 'remove 870 dimples' and get a buncha videos on either process.)

Offset pace, unload shotgun, make sure its unloaded, unload information technology some more than, and and so, finally, brand sure information technology'south unloaded.

Side by side up, remove barrel and forend. Piece of cake peasy.

Behold the offending dimples:

The hated dimple. It's similar some sort of Schumer-Feinstein Speed Bump keeping an otherwise good shotgun from becoming a meliorate shotgun.

The goal is to remove the whole bloody matter. For that, you'll need a expert size drill bit capable of easily and smoothly drilling metallic.

In this case, a 5/16″ chip, centered on the dimple, should be broad enough to exercise the job.

Information technology'south a skillful bit easier to accept someone else concord the gun steady while you go all drilltastic on information technology, but, if you accept no choice, you can do the job solo.

Don't exist an idiot….drill through i dimple, then flip the gun over, and drill the other 1. Don't just drill direct through.

Now, in one case the drilling is washed, you've still got some work ahead of yous. That magazine follower needs to slide upwardly and down that magazine tube like Sasha Gray on a Vegas stripper pole. So…you lot're going to accept to polish the inside of the magazine tube where you drilled the holes to make sure there are no rough edges or anything that will snag the mag follower. In that location are a couple ways to do this…here's the easiest. Get catch your Dremel prepare (aka 'The Gunsmiths Friend') and pull out 1 of those sanding/polishing drums. The holes you lot drilled aren't so far down the magazine that yous can't achieve them with the Dremel. I already had my drill out so I just chucked the Dremel bit into the drill.

Spin it up, make it in that location, and showtime polishing. You want to remove any jagged scrap of metal from the drilling process. You want admittedly no jagged edge, lip, or raised metal from where the drill bit passed through the metallic. You lot can't really overpolish things, and so go to far rather than not far plenty.

When finished, I ran a 12 ga. BoreSnake through the mag tube a bunch of times to brand sure any debris was removed.

12 ga. BoreSnake to brand sure debris is removed. Volition also snag on any obvious jagged edges you missed.

A discussion about followers. This is the crappy, lightweight, flimsy, plastic, OEM follower Remington sent this shotgun out into the world with. Permit'due south not sugarcoat it…its a POS.

Has the overall quality feel of the footling plastic patio tabular array that keeps the box chapeau off your pizza cheese. Doesn't instill much confidence.

Other than it beingness a good, brilliant color it has null going for it. Oh, I'chiliad sure it will work just I want something with some ruggedness, some heft, some substance.

From Wilson Combat. Still plastic, but much more solid.

Wilson Combat 870 follower. There are some others out there, including stainless steel ones, but I'm comfy with this one. Some followers have grooves to accommodate the dimples (so they merits). I don't trust them. I'thou certain there is a way the follower can rotate slightly in the magazine tube and so take the grooves not line up with dimples. You're welcome to put your faith in them, but I'll settle for a dimple-less magazine tube and the peace of mind it brings.

So, once you have the drilled holes polished and smooth on the within of the magazine tube information technology's time to put the gun back together. I'grand not going to tell you how..if y'all got it apart, you should be able to get it back together….if not, plenty of videos on YouTube to show you how.

The adjacent matter, which I should hope you would find obvious, is to exam the thing. Go get some dummy shotgun shells and load up the mag. Cycle through all the shells. When the gun is empty the follower should be visible to show y'all that the gun is empty.

If the gun has ejected all the shells and you don't see the follower, that means it is hung upward in the tube. Take everything apart and get dorsum to polishing. As well, check the follower for sharp edges likewise. I slightly rounded the edges on mine but make sure it would run smoothly up and downwards the tube. Don't neglect this function testing. When y'all're done with the role exam, do it again. And again. I do information technology well-nigh a dozen times because y'all really can't have too much confidence in your firearms. When its washed, load up the shotgun with your dummy shells and let information technology sit for a few days, then do the part bank check a few times again and make certain everything is fine. Once you're satisfied, go to the range and shoot a case of cheap shells through it to give it a final part bank check.

The finished product, exorcised of the dimples. Set up for whatever life throws at information technology. (Although, realistically, I demand to get a rear sling swivel on there.

If you're buying a used 870, bank check to come across if information technology has the dimples. There are millions of 'em out at that place that don't and if its a option between ii used 870'due south, equal in all respects except for the dimples, I'd buy the 1 without.

Exercise a pair of holes in the mag tube pose a risk of clay getting in there? Well, certainly more run a risk than if the holes weren't there. However, the simply time the holes are uncovered are when you actually wheel the action of the gun. The rest of the time they are covered by the forend. Honestly, I see it every bit a not-issue unless I drop the 870 in a sandbox or something.

At that place you take it – how to remove Remington 870 magazine dimples. Bold you have a power drill and nothing else, you lot'll need:

• five/16″ drill bit – nearly $3.00 for a good one
• Dremel polishing/sanding drum – probably five bucks
• 12 ga. BoreSnake – $12 just you should already take one of these anyway

Armed with this knowledge, I urge you to go along and eliminate the dimples wherever you may observe them…until our groovy nation is again a nation of undimpled Remington 870's. So say we all.

clarkjonan1955.blogspot.com

Source: http://www.commanderzero.com/?p=2376

Share this post