Remington 870 Express Tactical Review
Part 3 - External Features
January 9, 2011

In this part of the review, I will cover the external features of the Remington 870 Express Tactical Shotgun.  In the next part, I will cover some of these features even more when I disassembly the shotgun.  Throughout the review, you can click on a photo which will bring up a high resolution image showing even more detail.  These next two photos give you overall side views of the shotgun.

Figure 1

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Starting with the front of the Remington 870 Express Tactical Shotgun, you have several key features.  The first is the Remington Tactical Choke Tube.  This choke tube can also be used for breeching, but I recommend you do more research into the proper way and rounds to use for this task. The choke tube extends the overall length of the shotgun by 1.95" (call it 2") and provides 18 vent ports.  It also includes an aggressive front end that can be used to inflict damage to an assailant without having to actually shoot them.  The actual choke portion is considered to be a Cylinder choke which should have no constriction.

Figure 3
 

The matte finish on the barrel, magazine tube and extension tube is a bead blast black oxide finish which you can see below.

Figure 4

The front blade sight is produced by XS Sight Systems and has a highly visible white bead to use in conjunction with the rear Ghost Ring sight.  You can see the "XS" logo on the front of the blade sight in the photo above.  The Remington 870 Express Tactical Shotgun also comes with a factory installed 2-Shot Magazine Extension Tube.  This extension tube allows you to get six 2 ¾" shells into the tube, which makes this shotgun a 7-shot (6 in tube + 1 in chamber).  I was only able to get five 3" shells in the extension tube, so it would be a 6-shot with 3" shells.

Figure 5
  

Figure 6

The extension tube includes a sling swivel on the support clamp.  I wish Remington would have included side Picatinny rails as part of this support clamp.  In my mind, every tactical gun should have the capability to install a light and this is the one feature I feel is missing from this tactical package.  It is something that is easily added by using a Laserlyte Shotgun Tri-Rail Mounting System, but again it would have been a nice touch.  Remington did add rails on their Model 887 Nitro Mag Tactical, which I plan to review in the near future.

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Figure 9

Remington refers to the fore-end as a "Tactical Style Fore-end".  Just like the stock, this is a synthetic part. When you compare this fore-end against the other variants of the 870 shotgun, tactical must refer to a slimmer and lighter fore-end and the ribbed area allows a good grip of the fore-end.  My opinion of tactical would have been to include some type rails.  The fore-end measured 6.81" in length.

Figure 10

The barrel was stamped "REMINGTON ARMS COMPANY ILION, NY" above the fore-end.

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The barrel was stamped showing gauge and shell size as shown (12GA 2 3/4" or 3") on the left side above the fore-end area.  The barrel was also stamped with "EE" barrel code about 1.5" rear of the fore-end.  This code represents the date the barrel was manufactured and the first "E" corresponds to October and the second "E" to the year 2010.

Figure 14

The pump action is transferred from the fore-end through two action/slide bars on the left and right of the gun.

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Figure 16

 

The next several photos show the full portion of the shotgun forward of the receiver.  The Remington 870 Express Tactical has a barrel length of 18.5".  The barrel length forward of the receiver is 17.9".  With the Tactical Rem Choke adding another 2", it is 19.9" total forward of the receiver.

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Figure 20

The receiver is drilled and tapped to accept the XS Sight Systems XS Shotrail.  This rear sight system incorporates a Ghost Ring rear sight that includes both windage and elevation adjustment features.

Figure 21

The Model 870 has a steel receiver with a black oxide finish.  The XS Shotrail is an anodized aluminum rail that is 5" long and includes 8 slots for attachment of various optics that can use either Weaver or Picatinny mounts.

Figure 22
 

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The photo below shows the bottom of the receiver and the carrier.

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Figure 27

The trigger plate/guard is a molded synthetic part.  Shown below are the action bar lock, trigger and safety (shown in fire position).  The average trigger pull after six pulls on this shotgun was 4.6 pounds.

Figure 28

The stock is also a synthetic part that includes a rubber butt pad.  The butt pad is a fairly dense rubber and will provide some recoil absorption, but not much.  The length of pull measured to be about 13.75".

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The stock includes an integrally molded lug to attach a sling mount.

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Figure 33
 

The shotgun weighed in at 7.06 pounds empty.  The total length of this gun measured 40.75" which was more than the Remington specification.  It looks like they didn't include the Tactical Rem Choke.

Figure 34

 

In the next part of the review, Part 4, I will cover the disassembly of the shotgun and some basic internal features.  The following links are provided to help you navigate to the other parts of this review.

• Part 1 - Introduction, Specifications and Summary
• Part 2 - What's In The Box
• Part 3 - External Features (this page)
• Part 4 - Disassembly and Internal Features
• Part 5 - Range Test

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