Has anybody registered and significantly shortened the barrel on a Remington V3 (or a VersaMax since it shares a very similar gas system/piston arrangement)

Looking at the V3 it looks like it would make a really compact semi-auto SBS as the gas system is very close to the chamber.  Since there is no recoil spring in the stock, it could be equipped with a folding or collapsing stock for a very small overall package.  It looks like  Rem870 stocks can be attached to the V3 via a custom conversion plate.

I would be looking to probably cut the barrel down close to even to the front of the mag tube so  ~12” give or take.   However, even with the gas system being right in front of the chamber I am not sure if I will lose enough dwell time for the gun to cycle.

Before I buy, register, and potentially destroy a 12G Rem V3 I would see if anybody has experience with this and how short the barrel can go before major modifications are required.

If nobody has experience with this,  I figure I can test fire it with some really light birdshot and start cutting it back inch by inch to see if it stops cycling before I hit my desired length.  If it eventually stops cycling with light birdshot, I should probably still be good with higher dram buckshot loads.

Worst case I guess I could enlarge/drill the gas ports larger and keep cutting going shorter, but that may require some significant surgery to cut off the gas block from the barrel and TIG it back on if I cant get to the ports another way.

Proposed mockup below:

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On a related note I have read that cutting and rethreading a VersaMax is almost impossible due to the “Pro-Bore” and special chokes it takes.

However the V3 appears to take standard Rem Chokes.  Anybody had a V3 cut back and rethreaded even if it wasn’t NFA length?  Would be nice to be able to add a Salvo to it down the road but isnt a deal breaker if not.

I have cut and threaded (Rem-Choke) a V3 barrel to SBS length. The location of the gas ports (just in front of the chamber) let you shorten the barrel without the dwell time issue that may happen in other guns that have the gas port farther down the barrel. Same with the V Max barrels.

Versa Max barrel can generally be cut and threaded for Rem-Choke or Tru-Choke tubes (I've done both) depending on the barrel wall thickness at the cut spot (some VM barrel are tapered through the mid sections, others are plenty thick all the way down the barrel)

Glad to hear that there is some history of success with this concept and that the V3 barrels have a good chance of being re-threaded for rem-chokes after being cut back.

Thanks again for the response...I will  get in touch with you once the paperwork comes back to get it re-threaded for chokes.

If you already have the gun let me know OD of the barrel is at the spot you are going to cut it off and I can tell you what choke options you will have

I don't have one yet but will probably pick one up in the next week or so.  Once I get it in I will let you know the barrel OD around the proposed cut point.

Op,

You might want to wait until August to pick a V3 up.  Remington is going to be running a $100 off rebate.  My local dealer just got in a ton of the 83400 model, $399 after rebate.  With a $100 deposit they will hold the gun until the rebate begins.  PM me if you want more info.

Will that rebate be good for the SBS LE models as well?

Where did you hear about this?  I just checked their web site and the only rebate offered on shotguns now is a $60 rebate on all 870 Tactical models.

Remington V3 SBS project host has been purchased.    Appreciate the heads up regarding the $100 Remington rebate.

In case anyone is still looking for the rebate information.

https://www.remington.com/sites/default/files/rebate/file/DoveDays_LongForm_Shotguns.pdf

There are a bunch of them out there in the low $500s prior to the $100 rebate.

Got the gun Friday and shot it a bit for fun. Might use it dove hunting even.

Resurrecting an old thread, anyone have pics or any more details on performance of the gun as an SBS?

Yeah I would like to see some pics as well.

With Remington possibly going belly up may be some good deals on the V3.

Sorry for the delay in reporting back.  I had to pick up a V3 and get the approved SBS Form 1 back.

I will be taking the V3 out to the range with a chop saw in the next couple weeks to see what happens as it is cut "by the inch" with the hope to get it all the way back to the front of the factory hand guard and still cycle properly.

Once I have the testing done, I will reach out to RAS to get the end cleaned up and rethreaded for chokes.

A couple of notes so far.

1. A remington 11/87 factory folder does not fit on the V3 receiver.  Its close, but the V3 receiver is slightly "fatter" than an 1187 (1.5" vs 1.35"), probably to accomidate the recoil mechanism inside the V3 receiver.

The inside dimension of the factory LE topfolder is ~1.4".  So I will have to mill a custom adapter that will probably take a standard AR pistol grip and then either split, widen by 0.1" and then reweld a factory Rem top folder stock, or just make a new top folding stock from scratch.

2. The top rib is a PITA to remove.  I dont know how remington does it but they appear to somehow weld a very thin little strip under each vent rib portion that touches the barrel.  Looks like I will have to mill them off very carefully and then dress up the last little bit by hand with files.

I will post updates as I get more information and of course once it is done.

*Edited to add that if anybody does file a F1 on a V3 the formal model is "Remington V3" and I would suggest submitting a picture as well to back that up.   I had the NFA branch reach out to me about why I put "Remington V3" as the model (which is in line with their current guidance as to put exactly what is engraved on the receiver, even if common sense dictates otherwise) and they seemed concerned until I sent them a picture, at which point they agreed my original submission of "Remington V3"  was indeed correct and approved.

If everything goes as planned the barrel OD at the optimum cut spot right in front of the forearm (as pictured in the original post) is 0.84".

Minimum OD to have adequate barrel wall thickness for Rem-Choke tubes is .845”. Your .840” measurement should allow the barrel to be threaded for Tru-Choke tubes (sorry, no Salvo adapter currently available in that thread pattern , although Silencerco says “maybe...someday”)

Thanks for the specs, that is helpful to better understand my options.

So this evening I went back and took a caliper to the barrel from the ideal cut point back the length of a rem choke.

The ideal cut point is 0.841" but back where the rear of the choke would be is 0.892".  The midpoint of the choke is 0.853".

I made a mark where the barrel fattens up to 0.845" which is about 0.75" farther down from the ideal cut point in front of the end of the mag tube nut.  So the good news is the barrel quickly fattens up south of the ideal cut point.

So in order to keep the Salvo as part of the build, I either need to cut the barrel back farther to where it fattens up apppropriately, or have a custom made Salvo True Choke made.

Assuming I can cut the gun back this far and still have it cycle, that seems like the preferable route to paying somebody to make me a one off true-choke based Salvo adapter. ($$$)

This leave me with a bit of an issue in terms of stack up tolerance for the barrel and ultimately the salvo to clear the mag tube nut and hand guard.  However, given I am only coming back ~0.75" from the ideal cut point I think I can still make it work with minimal mods.

1.  The barrel/mag tube retaining nut has some extra non-threaded depth in order to engage the plastic locking piece that comes out of the front of the mag tube. As you can see from the pics below the factory mag tube/nut arrangement is anything but "low profile".   I could ditch the plastic "click" retaining piece, mill out the barrel nut where those plastic fins seat, and which would then allow the mag tube retaining nut to seat that much farther on the mag tube threads giving an overall shorter length.  This would also require modifying the handguard to a slightly shorter length to allow the barrel nut to seat deeper on the threads.

2. The mag tube threading is already much deeper than what the mag tube retaining nut engages, so the mag tube could also be slightly shortened if needed  and still have plenty of available threading.

3.  The Salvo adapters appear to stick out of the front of the barrel by a decent amount as well.  So even if the barrel is smidge shorter than the end of the mag tube nut, the Salvo adapter effectively adds length to the barrel once installed.   When not running the Salvo I could just use an extended "breacher"  type choke if I want the barrel to extend past the mag tube lock nut by a small amount for cosmetics.

4. Worst case I have to cut the mag tube significantly and either get the threading extended farther down the tube (or the threading on the portion threaded into the receiver longer).  Alternatively I would need another way to attach the mag tube nut on the mag tube (if the threading is gone), of which I have a couple workable ideas.

So assuming I can get the barrel cut back this far and have it cycle, I would send you the barrel to be rethreaded for Rem Chokes as far down the barrel as you could feasibly do.  I would deal with the mag tube and handguard stacking tolerances so the rear end of the Salvo would clear the mag tube nut and hand guard.

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I was able to head out to the range earlier this week and start cutting and I brought a mix of ammo from light #8 1oz Dove loads all the way to 2.75" LE Buckshot, along with the handy battery powered "dremel" cutoff tool and a file.

The results were as follows.

Everything ran fine down to greater than 12".

At 12" the lightest dove loads would still eject properly when loaded in a single round at a time.   However when 2 or 3 rounds were loaded and the carrier has to contend with another round ejecting underneath it, I would start to get FTEs.

At 11.5" the 1oz light Dove loads would FTE almost 100% of the time. And the stronger 1oz loads also started to FTE.  The 1.5oz and buckshot still ran fine.

At 11" the 1.5oz loads started to exhibit the FTE with multiple shells loaded but would still eject with a single shell loaded.

At 10" the 1.5oz loads would FTE even when loaded singles probably 50%+ of the time and would almost always FTE with multiple shells loaded.   The LE buckshot continue to eject strong and without issues.

So the net is that right now, Buckshot still ejects with authority based off the recoil and ejection patterns.  The 1.5oz Heavy Dove loads don't have enough omph to eject properly.

My suspicion is that the 1.5oz dove loads will probably cycle and eject fine once a suppressor is attached.

However, given how close 1.5oz Dove loads are to functioning as is,  I think I can make some minor mods to the gas system to get them to run.  May take me a week or two to make some changes and get back to the range to test.  I also need to cut/clean off the rest of the vent rib based off my previous experiments farther down the barrel.

Some pics of the range.

Ammo Selection

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At 17" after the first cut (Yeah official SBS land!)

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At ~12"

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At ~10"

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Awesome info. Thank you for posting the update.

I do have one  additional update.  I was able to mod the V3 gas system and its now back to cycling even the light 1oz Dove loads, although I did have one FTE out of a box of shells.

The stronger 1oz Dove loads and the 1-1/8 loads all cycles flawlessly.

I am working on getting the vent rib off and have a Tru Choke and a Salvo-12 Browning Invector Plus choke on the way.  I think there is enough meat on the Browning Invector Plus choke to profile it down and rethread it into a Tru Choke.  I spoke with Briley's last week and they said they may be able to do it if I send them examples of each.

I am going to see if keeping it at 10" and making a Salvo Tru Choke out of a Browning Invector Plus choke is an option before cutting the barrel back another 0.75" to where it would be fat enough in terms of OD for rem chokes.

That setup looks great! I would leave the rib, put a bead on the last connection, and lop off the the thin part of the rib extending into the air past it. The rip will keep the bead above the collar of the Salvo. I have two Salvos, love them and have been looking into doing a SBS semi like yours.

My Salvo-12 showed up at my dealer yesterday.  I will be putting the Form 4 in the mail this weekend.

My reference example Tru-Choke also showed up as well.  I am still waiting on the Salvo Browning Invector Plus Choke to show up.  If everything looks OK , I am going to take both chokes couple local gunsmiths next week to see if they can make a custom Salvo based Tru-Choke.  If nobody local can do it, the chokes will be shipped off to Briley's in Houston to see what their assessment is.

Also, ordered the Vang Comp front & rear sites from Brownells as well to see how they will look/function.

Figured I would give am update on the V3 SBS project.

Good news is my Vang Comp sights and Sico Salvo Browning Invector Plus Choke all came in.

I dropped off the barrel, the Browning IVP choke, and an example TruChoke with a local gunsmith/machinist and he agreed that there was enough material on the Browning IVP choke to turn it into a TruChoke.  He could also cut the 44 TPI double lead thread that the TruChoke required so agreed to give it a go.

On Friday I got my Remington V3 barrel back (now threaded for TruChokes) and my new Sico Salvo - Improved Modified - TruChoke adapter.

Custom Salvo TruChoke Adapter

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Salvo on my barrel

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Now for the downside....the VangComp rear site base doesn't exactly fit the wider V3 receiver, so it looks like I am going to have to modify the rear site base.

If I get time tomorrow, I am going to silver solder the VangComp front site on the barrel.    I found this picture of a VangComp front sight with the vent rib intact on an 870.   I may end up leaving the vent rib and blending it into the VangComp sight vs. cutting the rest of the vent rib off.  Any thoughts???

VangComp with Vent Rib:

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It looks good with the full rib. I assume it's a little more work than just chopping it off.

I think the vent rib looks far better on, than off.  It looks more like a custom gun with the rib.

That suppressor is going to be incredible too. Really impressive.

That looks damn good.

Well I got the front site on this weekend.  Ended up keeping the vent rib as it looked pretty good in the pic and seemed to be the consensus here.

Here is the mockup after cutting and filing the vent rib to fit.   All taped up and ready to go into the blast cabinet.

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Front site soldered on and reassembled.  Next step will be to paint with Norrell Molycoat.

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Found some old pics on my camera from engraving a couple month back or so.  Figure I would post them up.

Loaded into the pantograph

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Next steps are to paint and bake the barrel.

After that I still need modify the Vang Comp rear sit to fit the V3 receive profile and then drill and tap the receiver for the rear site base.

Final steps will be to build a custom folding stock assembly.

So I take it these have the recoil systems in the action or forend? Don’t know much if anything about these guns.

Yes, the recoil system is inside the receiver.  The gun will fire and cycle without the butstock attached.

The recoil system in the receiver was one of the two attributes (the other being the gas port/piston location arrangement) that started me down the road on this project.

The end result will hopefully be a fully functional semi-auto Rem 870 LE topfolder clone.

That looks awesome with the rib and front sight.  This gets me wanting to do a build like yours.

Small update.

Barrel has been painted with Norrell Moly-Resin and baked.  Small unanticipated complication in that the front site solder flux (and maybe some solder) came up through the front site hole and clogged up the threads.  Ended up having to use a 8-36 bottom tap to clean up the threads.

Anyhoo....here she is after the barrel being painted with moly-resin and the rear site mocked up on the receiver.  Plan to try and get the rear site permanently installed this weekend but need an 8-40 tap for the rear rail top screws which is on order and should arrive on Saturday.

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Slowly starting to look more like the original photoshopped conceptual drawing.

Last functional test I did with the temporary gas piston/system mods, it cycled everything from the initial tests above.

I need to make some permanent gas system mods that will also allow the gas piston to have adjustable bleed off system when shooting buckshot and/or with the Salvo attached (assuming the Salvo will add back pressure)

I have the adjustable design finalized on paper, I just need some machining time to make the parts.  I will post pictures of the final adjustable gas system modifications (assuming the adjustable system works as well as the temporary/fixed setup modifications in place right now)

That is, without a doubt, the coolest shotgun i've seen.  Badass!

Need to make a video of it firing.

Not a huge update but I milled the underside of the Vang Comp rear sight base assembly last weekend in order to reprofile it to match the fatter and not exactly "round" V3 receiver.

Drilled and tapped the receiver for the 4x required 8-40 mounting screws while dodging around the small factory drilled/tapped/plugged holes in the top of the receiver.

Ultimately everything installed/lined up perfectly with virtually no gap between the rear sight assembly and the top of the receiver.  Actually pretty shocked how tight the fit came out given my machining expertise could be considered "amateur" at best and I have virtually no experience machining round or curved contours.  I guess the advice of measure twice, go slow, and test fit often actually comes out OK on occasion.

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Pic of the V3 with the rear site  installed with a new extended vented choke that showed up in the mail this week as well.

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Still need to find time to work on the top folder stock but I did get a  tango down rear AR15 grip in the mail this week to support the pistol grip top-folder build.

One word of caution. The original Remington Law enforcement top folders are actually pretty fragile. The top folder hinges off of the bakelite hand grip and they crack at the pivot point rendering them useless and unrepairable.

I broke two on 870's top folders shooting buck and slugs. I eventually went with the Choat top folder.

Not as sexy and not as good looking but it's solid and well made.

Nicely done!  A folder and/or pistol grip stock options were the vision when the internal action springs were implemented.  The rib welding is the same as you'd see on the 870 or 1100.

I have actually abandoned the idea of using a Remington 870 LE topfolder as it really just doesnt fit right given the wider receiver.  I am going to just mill the topfolding adapter block from a chunk of solid aluminum and then weld up the stock arms from scratch.

I have the material but just need to find some time to finish this project up.   I have just a bunch of other competing priorities but I hope to get a slow week at work next week (being the week of the 4th) and can find some time to get the stock assembly started.

I got another Silencerco Salvo BI+ adapter (IC this time) that I need to drop off at the gunsmith to turn into a second Salvo  truechoke adapter.

No offense, OP, but why a top-folder?  Old school cool?  Side or underfolders aren't going to interfere w/ your sight picture.

Fascinating project, that's an interesting gas system.

Originally I was hoping to recycle a factory Rem LE Top Folder as I have a 870LE with that stock and like the setup both functionally and cosmetically.  For me when I think tube fed shotgun with something other than a fixed stock, in my mind I see a top-folder (maybe too many 80s action movies with SPAS-12s as a kid).  However after getting far enough down the road with the project it doesnt make sense to try and hack up an 870 stock to fit the V3 receiver and most likely end up with a pretty marginal result.

I have a side folder on my Tromix SAIGA-12 SBS and I just feel like side folders are just a bit more clunky in general and make the gun needlessly extra wide when folded.    With both the Choate and Butler Creek 870 side folders, the actual buttstock portion that goes against your shoulder doesn't fold up, so you have this large buttstock chunk of wire loop or triangular plastic now up against the forearm and it just seems like a clunky design.

I have never seen an underfolder on a shotgun but I guess it would be possible.  I suspect they are not popular as virtually all tube fed folding stock shotguns are pumps and an underfolder would interfere with the forearm pump.

However, with the high rise Vang Comp sites the top-folded stock design I have in mind won't interfere with the sights.  Granted I doubt I will ever really be firing it much with the stock folded up as I have never really been a big fan of pistol grip only shotguns like mossberg cruisers or shockwave's.

Before Choate ever produced a folder for a 20 ga, a Remington 20 ga Youth w/ Choate extension, Pachmayr PG, and 21" bbl w/ full choke tube was my car gun for many years.  7x #4 buck on tap, 140 pellets ready to go.

Damn! This is one amazing project!

I didn't know there were any semi-auto shotguns that didn't have part of the recoil system in the buttstock. Maybe my plan of a semi-auto masterkey really can come true.

What mods did you have to do to the gas system to have it work reliably?

@jbntex

Awesome shotgun. How much material did you have to mill off for the vang comp rear to sit flush?

Sorry I have been a bit delinquent in checking this thread recently.   I have not had much time to work on the V3 the past month or two as travel and other household projects have been getting in the way.

To answer your question about the gas system.

The way the V3 system works is there is a spring loaded gas bleed off piston on the opposite end of the actual action pistons.  Extra gas forces these spring loaded bleed off pistons back, gas then flows by the tapered piston head and out exhaust ports.

I initially tested with just a machined plug press fit into the entrance of the bleed off system, effectively closing it off and forcing all of the available energy into the pistons that work the bolt carrier.  My concern is that with a suppressor or heavier loads that over time this may overstress the system and cause premature wear.

Originally I was going to make a rotating plug that would vent off gas similar to how a Steyr AUG gas system works with bleed off channel matching up with ever larger bleed off vents.   However, I decided that an automated system would be better and I don't want to have to partially disassemble the gun to make gas piston changes that would also probably require a tool and/or get carboned up over time.

My latest design is more simple and is just a secondary conical gas piston port plug.  This way as gas hits the new conical plug it has to be forced back a couple millimeters before gas can effectively flow around it and out the gas exhaust ports.   I have made up the parts but have not had time to test it.   Ultimately I can vary the dwell time by making the non-conical portion of the pistons longer or shorter which corresponds to how much pressure it takes to force them back against the springs before gas can start to bleed around them.   The ones I have now are pretty long and i plan to cut them back at the range and measure where it fails to cycle with 1oz heavy dove loads.

Hopefully this illustration help.  (excuse my crude mspaint collage work)

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I didnt have to take off a whole lot.   Mainly I had to reprofile the curvature to make it fit the fatter receiver.

The best illustration I can provide is there is a vangcomp logo on the side of the rear site with maybe 1mm of space between the bottom of the font and the edge of the sight.   After milling the font was pretty much right at the bottom of the sight.

Basically a before an after example.

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You can see on the underside that the center of the site actually didnt get milled at all and the annodizing is still intact.

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@jbntx

Complete non-sequitur on your awesome shotgun thread. Do you do engraving work for hire? The work on the shotgun looked really good.

I learned that you can ghostload an extra round in the V3?

I used to do quite a bit of NFA engraving work for the centex area, mainly just as a help to the local NFA community.  I have been doing my own engraving for about a decade.  Back when I started most folks were either using a dremel, hand punches from harbor freight, or the local trophy or mall shop who would butcher their lowers as they were not experienced with engraving anodized firearm receivers.  There were a handful of national 07/02s who did engraving as well if you wanted to ship and they charged a premium being there wasn't much competition back then.

I pretty much did the work for at my cost (around $20) so that I could replace the carbide engraving bits as I would only use them once per engraving so they were super sharp and cleanly cut the hard coat anodizing on most of the AR lowers folks would bring over.

That said times have changed ....Ident opened up shop in Dallas, Gray Laser in San Antonio, and in Austin there is BlackSheep Arms, Elite Guns, Capitol Armory who all now do NFA engraving.  

I personally like the way pantograph engraving looks vs. laser (especially if the receiver is already roll or cutter engraved) and of course its easy to walk out to my shop and just do the work.

I generally recommend folks use on of the FFL commercial outfits in town who do laser work as the laser can hide the markings under the trigger guard or in the magwell which as places my machine can't reach. I am not an FFL and have a full time day job so its a work around my schedule type deal.  However, if you really want a gun pantograph engraved I do still help other out,  just PM me.

Thank you for the reply, I didn't know that anyone beside Black Sheep was doing it locally.

Where can I find a good deal on a V3 so I can copy yours? Very sweet boom stick you have there.

Definitely look into a tac13 seems like it would save you a lot of work.

I got mine online when Remington was running a significant rebate so i am not sure if you can match the $400 deal I got a in 2017.   However,  Gunbroker still has V3 sports in the $525 to $600 range.

You could also go with a TAC13 but will get a longer barrel at ~13" with the sorta strange looking rail adapter clamp thing on the end of the barrel/magtube vs. a clean 10" barrel if you cut down a full size.

If you are going to SBS it than I would go with a cut down full size to get the shorter 10" barrel as it is more compact and personally I think is aesthetically more appealing than the TAC13. (Granted its more work but you get a better result).    You also get a fixed stock as well with the full size vs. sourcing a stock after the fact.   You could always cut down a TAC13 but are going to pay a couple hundred more for the TAC13 vs. a V3 Field and still have to buy a stock, so why bother at that point.

I am still waiting on my Salvo which I thought would have been approved by now as its been pending since late April.

The good news is my custom gas port pistons made it through Texas dove season and the gun ran flawlessly with a mixed variety of field/dove loads.

I will post some final pics once my Salvo is finally approved.