I had an interesting experience recently with my 870.
I was patterning some 3" 00 buck and the vertical fore-grip broke off in my hand.
It's withstood these shells before so I'm guessing the mount might have been fatigued. Whatever the reason, having your chosen equipment/tools fail you is sooo not good.
Now, what would have happened had this occurred during an emergency of the life and death kind?
Bad juju...
It got me to thinking about what the shotgun gurus state time and again about keeping your "tactical" shotgun as basic as possible. Well, it's past time to heed their advice.
Since the Piccatiny Rail on the fore-end was broken I decided to take that shorter fore-end off. I put the original Remington factory fore-end back on.
I also removed the heat shield. It's the model with the ghost ring "combat" sights on it.
I don't care too much for the bead only sight on the barrel so I went back and put a True-Glo "Glo-Dot II" on. It's the one that snaps on the barrel just behind the bead and is fairly low-key.
For now I'm keeping the Knoxx Ind. "Spec Ops" stock on it till I can get the money together to get the more traditional Synthetic "Comp Stock" (also from Knoxx Industries). I'm thoroughly sold on the recoil reduction stocks this company sells. They are a very good investment, IMO.
I'm still mulling over the flashlight. I'm thinking a mounted flashlight is a must have for a bedside shotgun. But, it sticks out like a sore thumb the way it's mounted now so I'm considering getting a mount that doesn't stick out so far. Any ideas from the shotgun aficionados here?
Here are the before and after pics:
