I'm a civie who bought this used 30 years ago and put it away in the safe without firing it. The only thing I did at the time was put the magazine extension on it. I have a CHL here in Texas, and am way more familiar with handguns my whole life then with shotguns. I'm not 33 any more, and now that I'm 63 I was wondering if that folding pad will hurt as bad as what they use to say about it. Can I put an aftermarket recoil pad on it? Also, any advice about a sling? Any input would be appreciated, as I'm not at all familiar with this 870 and don't know what to expect with shooting it for the first time. While I'm not afraid of stout recoiling 44 mag handguns, a short 12ga shotgun is a different animal,  and I don't know if it will twist my wrist or what!  .....or if that hard thin pad against my shoulder is even worse.LOL

Cheek weld will be your problem.

I have a similar 870, love the look and size. Recoil is abusive

No matter what you do, it's gonna be hard with any sort of stout load ...

The "factory recoil pad" was a tiny sliver of stick on rubber, which was actually to keep the stock from making noise where the buttplate contacted the bbl when folded over.

The cut out in the butt plate was so the stock could fold & fit over shotguns with "slug" sights Vs. plain bead...

I think we still have one like that in our armory along with a full auto Uzi and a couple other goodies that are collecting dust.

J-

80s???? Still had mine last year! Stock was binding and the retards couldn't fix it.

I have one that I think was a bit of an anomaly:  a 3" chamber back in the day (80s) when everything wasn't 3".

And it was not that much fun to shoot.

I SBSed it and no longer run the overfolding configuration.

Issued one that I used as point man for SW's. After about two years of it I no longer wanted to use it.  Cheek weld sucked as mentioned, requal was a pain, honestly it's worth more in cash than anything else.  Ended up throwing it in a locker and getting one that We put a Knox on.

Really really cool but worth more in cash than function.