Found some # 6 long beards today so I now have #5 and #6 long beards. Now if we could just have some normal spring weather that is decent enough to pattern in I can see what the ol 870 likes to eat. I forgot to add that I do have a polished barrel and I really think it does give an upper edge on throwing good patterns, I did it myself and was pretty simple to so with the help of old gobbler and youtube