I bought my wife a NEF-distributed, Chinese-made clone of the 870 for a home defense gun. She told me that she wanted something for that, and I had to decide what I'd get her. This is it. It'll be a surprise.
The shotgun already holds 5+1, which if you do things right is about 4 rounds more than you should need on a bad day, so no need for a mag extension. Barrel is already 18.5 inches, so I can't legally shorten it any meaningful amount (no, I'm not going to SBS my wife's HD shotgun.. maybe mine).
What I'm not impressed with for a home defense shotgun is the stock, especially the shape of the butt pad. If you look up pictures of the shotgun online (the NEF Pardner Defender), you'll notice that the toe of the pad curves back and ends in a point. While OK for a field gun, it's not ideal at all on a home defense gun. Between that and worries that the Mrs. won't appreciate the recoil of 12 gauge buckshot and my thought that a pistol grip would make controlling the weapon easier on her, I've ordered her (and me for when I get one of these) a Knoxx Spec Ops stock. As I noted in my review thread, this thing will take 870 stocks, so that makes it easy. Recoil-absorbing, adjustable length of pull and a pistol grip? Fits the bill perfectly.
One of the other things that I've tried since getting outside my shotgun comfort zone (meaning hunting shotguns) is the HiViz front sight. I'd seen 'em, I knew what they were for, but never saw a point since I was hunting, and that was only legal from sun-up to sun-down where I lived. A light-gathering shotgun bead would have done me little good. But I can see the utility of it on a home defense weapon, so on it goes. Cost-wise it's going to be better than a red dot, and I'm not happy with the extra time it's going to take to turn a red dot on in the middle of the night. If I had my druthers, I'd put an XS sight on it and have something that would work all the time, but that would put my total build at triple the cost of the gun. Again, maybe on mine. (I've got an XS big dot set on my P220 and love it. I have trouble imagining a faster sight system.)
The name of this game is economical and practical. I'd been thinking about a Mossberg 500 or Remington 870, and had been prepared for the price of one of those, so even with these upgrades, I'm still at what I thought I'd be paying originally and am sure I'm going to wind up with a much more practical tool.
Most of the parts are inbound, when they get here I'll install them and hit the range with a few different loads. Can't wait to see what she thinks, but she's not a gun person so I'm probably building a masterpiece for someone who won't truly appreciate it... which is why I'm using it for practice to build one for me!
More to come as I go.
The shotgun already holds 5+1, which if you do things right is about 4 rounds more than you should need on a bad day, so no need for a mag extension. Barrel is already 18.5 inches, so I can't legally shorten it any meaningful amount (no, I'm not going to SBS my wife's HD shotgun.. maybe mine).
What I'm not impressed with for a home defense shotgun is the stock, especially the shape of the butt pad. If you look up pictures of the shotgun online (the NEF Pardner Defender), you'll notice that the toe of the pad curves back and ends in a point. While OK for a field gun, it's not ideal at all on a home defense gun. Between that and worries that the Mrs. won't appreciate the recoil of 12 gauge buckshot and my thought that a pistol grip would make controlling the weapon easier on her, I've ordered her (and me for when I get one of these) a Knoxx Spec Ops stock. As I noted in my review thread, this thing will take 870 stocks, so that makes it easy. Recoil-absorbing, adjustable length of pull and a pistol grip? Fits the bill perfectly.
One of the other things that I've tried since getting outside my shotgun comfort zone (meaning hunting shotguns) is the HiViz front sight. I'd seen 'em, I knew what they were for, but never saw a point since I was hunting, and that was only legal from sun-up to sun-down where I lived. A light-gathering shotgun bead would have done me little good. But I can see the utility of it on a home defense weapon, so on it goes. Cost-wise it's going to be better than a red dot, and I'm not happy with the extra time it's going to take to turn a red dot on in the middle of the night. If I had my druthers, I'd put an XS sight on it and have something that would work all the time, but that would put my total build at triple the cost of the gun. Again, maybe on mine. (I've got an XS big dot set on my P220 and love it. I have trouble imagining a faster sight system.)
The name of this game is economical and practical. I'd been thinking about a Mossberg 500 or Remington 870, and had been prepared for the price of one of those, so even with these upgrades, I'm still at what I thought I'd be paying originally and am sure I'm going to wind up with a much more practical tool.
Most of the parts are inbound, when they get here I'll install them and hit the range with a few different loads. Can't wait to see what she thinks, but she's not a gun person so I'm probably building a masterpiece for someone who won't truly appreciate it... which is why I'm using it for practice to build one for me!
More to come as I go.
