Remington 870 wingmaster

[gaturkeyhunter]

I'm looking into getting a rem choke barrel for my gun.  Currently it has a full choke barrel no screw in choke option.  40 yards my pattern with tss #7s is ok at best.  Make me feel good about a 21 inch barrel purchase lol. I know opinions vary what the general consensus on choke choices for this barrel using tss shells. 

[CrustyRusty]

Make sure that you get a barrel with the ball detent, otherwise you will need a wave washer.   The 21 is a great length barrel. Easy to carry and handle and with the right combo deadly

[etapia]

Nothing wrong with a 21 inch wingmaster. Great gun. A short barrel is good for a run and gun style. Less movement and easier to carry all day.

[dzsmith]

I'm looking into getting a rem choke barrel for my gun.  Currently it has a full choke barrel no screw in choke option.  40 yards my pattern with tss #7s is ok at best.  Make me feel good about a 21 inch barrel purchase lol. I know opinions vary what the general consensus on choke choices for this barrel using tss shells.

you got options...the older 870 non threaded barrels haver a thinner O.D. than newer threaded barrels. Depending on how old it is and the O.D. , you could send the barrel off and have it threaded with truchoke threads. There is a guy in Oklahoma who has a good bit of experience in threading these older barrels, his name is Johnny Stone, does "excellent forcing cone work" as well. This is of course if you wanted to keep the orginal barrel and cut it down, you may want to keep it factory and simply buy another barrel to cut up like you mentioned. I personally shoot a 21" barrel on my 870 and its not the original barrel. With TSS #9s everbody and their mother was shooting a .665 with TSS, particularly #9s. I got a decent pattern with the .665 ....decent not great. Here is a list of the chokes I shot and my experience with them. I shot a sumtoy .665 averaging high 300s in a 10" circle at 40. I shot a indian creek .665 also averaging high 300s but slightly less than the sumtoy. I shot a Rhino .670 smoothbore choke and the pattern was unacceptable...high 200s and low 300s. I shot a jellyhead .660 original smoothbore and shot mid 300s. I shot a sumtoy .655, which I figured to be too tight and it was...averaging mid 300s. I shot a Remington factory full, extra full, and super full....none were acceptable....low 300s was the best I got. This year I bought a .670 sumtoy and a .660 sumtoy. The .670 averaged mid to slightly above mid 300s....At this point the .665 sumtoy was the best pattern I had gotten with my personal best being 391 pellets in a 10" circle at 40 yards. all these loads were shot with a clean bore. In my personal experience in my 870 the pattern only progressed worse after about 3 shots down the barrel, so all these shots were from a clean barrel. So....even though I had already tried a .660 smoothbore choke , I bought a used .660 sumtoy. It pushed me through the 400 pellet threshold at 40 yards averaging low 400s, 410-420. The .660 had the most even pellet distribution as well as the densest pattern with my setup. barrel is 21" with the forcing cone lengthened. It also held the tightest average shot to shot, not much variation until the barrel  started getting dirty. I pretty much shot everything from .655-.670 with smoothbore chokes and staged wad stripping chokes with .660 staged sumtoy being the best I could do. Yours will probably act differently, but I like putting the info out there from my experience.

[EZ]

I'm looking into getting a rem choke barrel for my gun.  Currently it has a full choke barrel no screw in choke option.  40 yards my pattern with tss #7s is ok at best.  Make me feel good about a 21 inch barrel purchase lol. I know opinions vary what the general consensus on choke choices for this barrel using tss shells.

Just my 2 cents.
I have the first year model for the Rem. 870 "Special Purpose" which was a fixed full choke, bought before the spring of '86. My thoughts at the time were to pay Mark Bansner a visit and have the barrel cut down and re-sleeved with his tight turkey choke. After patterning a bunch of different shells, I decided against it. With the right loads, I knew I could easily kill any turkey at 40+ yards, yet it was open enough that I wouldn't miss birds in close (under 25 yards).

I'm still using that gun today. I found that it likes big payloads (2 oz.) of Heavyshot Blend even better than lead, as I believe most guns do.

You didn't state what is meant by "your patterns are OK at best". I never got into chasing that "the more in a 10 inch circle at 40 yards, the better" number. Obviously, you want a good, even pattern that is denser in the middle, but I think you should also take into account how tight your pattern is at close range because it may cause you to miss those head juking birds.

Just another way of looking at it that certainly doesn't get mentioned much these days. I will say, it has saved me a ton of money (and frustration) over the years. Just point, shoot and KILL. And kill it has.

Good luck.

[Longshanks]

Have two old Remington barrels that have the Hastings C-T 1/ Tru-choke threads installed in them. Some of my best shooting guns with lead. Kicks, Jndian Creek, and several other companies make chokes for those threads. Also bought on of the new 21" barrels and it was tough to find something that would work in it. Finally ended up with the Hevi 13 choke and shooting Hevi 7's. Great turkey gun but it is a one shell barrel. Nothing else shoots very well out of it.