I'm thinking of buying a Remington 870 Tactical, the one with the front rifle sight, rear ghost ring and receiver rail. I'd like to be able to bust a few clays with it sometime. That would mean putting on a 26" vent rib barrel, taking off the mag extension and putting on a cap and short spring, and removing the rail. Can the rail be easily removed? Any other considerations I'm missing? Thanks.

The rail on the tactical reciever can be removed,there are three screws that mount it to the reciever .They can be a PITA to get out the first time,I think from factory the have Loctite on them.

Why not get a standard 870 with the 26" barrel and an 18" barrel with tritium sights? It would be a lot cheaper. you could still always change out the pump for a surefire. that would give you a better "Tactical" shotgun then the Remington 870 Tactical. (I am a R870 Tactical Owner, and if I were to buy it again I would have gone with the standard shotgun and built up from there)

Rickety, that was my original plan - to get an on-sale 870 Express, an extended mag kit, a wood riot gun forend (to match the wood stock), an 18 1/2" barrel with front and rear XS sights, and do the dimple-removal mod. I added everything up and the cost was about the same, so I figured I'd just save a lot of effort starting with the tactical. May I ask what you don't like about the factory Tactical configuration?

Initial Cost. Unfortunately I bought my shotgun during the panic of 2008 because i couldn't get an AR-15 and wanted something else besides a .22LR handgun for home defense.I don't know if the one you are looking at comes with the Knoxx Stock, mine did and that is one of my favorite features. Mine also did not come with rifle sights- i just have the shotgun bead. I will be swapping barrels to one with tritium sights and adding the surefire.

What I should have done is started with a R870 express synthetic 18" w/ ext mag and added the sights, knoxx stock, and surefire.

Do you really need the rail? Do you plan on mounting a red dot? Understand that all the 870s are essentially the same gun until you get into the wingmaster and police. They are all express guns, and the tactical gives you the brand "tactical".  Take the mans advice above. Find an older used 870 (wingmaster or police if it were me, i buy every good priced wingmaster i find), will save you about 100-200 bucks. Then buy a Wilson extension and put the stocks on you want. Buy a police rifle sight barrel, and pick up a CDM light mount, or surefire foreend if you can afford it.
Buy used and build it up exactly how you want.

+1 on buying and building up. I bought a Super Mag with 26" barrel after graduating high school. Since then I have bought an Remington factory 18" bead sight barrel, Remington Factory 14" tritium rifle sight barrel, +2 shot extension, 4-shot right side Mesa Tactical side saddle, and cheek pad/ shelll carrier pouch. It came with a speedfeed pistol grip stock and long factory synthetic forend, since then I have bought the buttstock that matched the forend that also came with the synthetic police forend, and a Surefire 318LMG. I recently traded for a Remington factory 20" rifled rifle sight barrel which is in the mail right now. All I like is getting a 6-shot left side Mesa Tactical side saddle, +1 shot extension to match up with the 14" barrel, sling and mount, oversized safety button, and thinking about swapping out the cheek pad/ carrier for a lower profile carrier without the pad. And looking for a case to be able to carry all of it together for super versatility to keep from using my old AR soft case. Also, it is wasn't so costly would switch out the synthetic trigger assembly for a police assembly. And I've really been thinking about getting all of this refinished in Duracoat or something for less worry with possible surface rusting.

Yeah, now that read all this. I have a lot invested in this shotgun, but I have a setup for everything, turkey hunting, deer hunting, home defense, "zombie defense" , close quarters defense, and anything in between.

I think you should give us a picture of it all together! at least the shotgun and your barrels/mag extensions

Take a look at the Hawk 982.  If you can find one, it's a good investment for a beater defense gun compared to a remington of equal cost.

Wes

The 14" is at Trijicon getting a new life with new tritium inserts right now.


Here is the ammo collection I keep in the soft case (75+ rounds, not counting what's in/on gun) and ammo can in my room, not counting what i have in the gun safe.





ETA: Yea, I only have 20 shells for the rifled barrel, but it's not here yet, and $3 per shell is going to keep the shell count down for that barrel. But I will extend my collection for it once I have it in possession.

I have an 870 Tactical Model with Ghost sights, and I've shot clays with it. My issue was the front sight was too short, but once I replaced it and fit the gun to me (factory stock was too long), I was hitting them in no time. Even more fun with a red dot, in my case an Insight MRDS.

Do not get the current express 7shot 870. The 18" barrel is not changeable!

That's a very good point. Why Remington decided to try and mimic Mossberg with the extended tube is beyond me.

Thank you I didn't know this, this may change my mind now on it.

Make sure you get one that has the +2 Extension tube and you should be GTG.

Bear in mind that removing the sight rail every time you want to shoot skeet will be a big pain in the ass. You'd be better served taking another route.

Thanks for the info, guys. Still not quite sure what route I'm going to take, though I'm leaning towards building one up, simply because I think the Tacticals might be scarce on the ground for a while.

Tmender and Dodge, I'm a bit unclear on the mag tube differences. I see that Remington's site shows two types of mag tubes, one with a sling button on the cap and one without (and that second one has a turned-down portion for an M-16 bayonet ring.) Are you saying that one of these two styles is incompatible with barrel interchangability? Sorry if I'm being dense, shotguns are new to me.

In order to change barrels you need to purchase the factory 870 with either a +2 extension or a 5 shot mag tube. I you choose the 5 shot be aware that you will need to remove the dimples on the mag tube before adding the new extension. I do not recommend drilling them out! The current "HD" or 7 shot has an odd length tube and they only make one barrel. You can identify this one by looking at the last 4 or 5 inches of the tube. If it ends about an inch from the barrel without an extension it's the new 7 shot tube. The old one was a 5 shot with a 2 shot extension added. It will end flush with the barrel. I believe they changed the lenght of the barrels as well. The new one is 18" the old one was 18.5" you want the 18.5".

BAD new tube:


GOOD old tube with 2shot:


GOOD with no extension(longer barrel):

Dodge, that is a fantastic reply. Thanks for taking the time to do that. That's extremely helpful.

What makes the barrel not changeable on this model?

The longer tube also means a different point for the barrel nut.


ETA : look closely at the pics above, please.