Bought an 870 youth camo with 21" barrel last year. Never had a chance to dial it in and decided to stay with the tried and true Nova 20 gauge which uses an 570 Sumtoy. With that rig (26" barrel) and Heavyweight 7's I average 150 hits in the old 10" circle. I've killed probably 8 gobblers with that rig. Anyway, back to the Remington. Last year just no time and I let it slide. Today I decided to grab it and head to the range. Shot off a lead sled at 40 measured yards. Chokes used were the Remington Super Full factory at .572, a Sumtoy .562, Sumtoy .567, A hevi-shot non-ported .575 and a MaDD .560. 5 shots take and the bore cleaned between each shot.
Clear winner was the El Cheapo Hevi-shot choke tube made by whomever (guessing Carlson?). The others pretty much stunk.
PS. It was a tad windy and cool at 47 degrees. Anyway results are:
Hevi-shot non-ported .575 choke 130 hits
Sumtoy .567 107 Hits
Sumtoy .562 85 Hits
Remington .572 Super full 91 hits
Madd .560 96 hits
Good enough to hunt with, but I'll keep searching for the Holly Grail:
(https://i.imgur.com/d38PZgbh.jpg)
It's not that the chokes suck it's the choke and ammo combo that suck. Each shotgun is different and you have to find the choke tube and ammo pair that works the best together in your shotgun.
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I've got 14 boxes of the Heavyweight so I'll be looking for the best combo with that load. For now, its certainly huntable at 40 yards. Amazing, 10 years ago I would have died for this pattern out of 20 gauge.
May you bust a big tom!
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Truglo SSX did best for when when I shot heavyweights. .550 I think it was
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Tru-Lock Federal Heavyweight choke .560, They dont make this exact choke any more, so finding one might me tough , but they make one for the tss and its a .560 also, I believe someone on here had really good results with the tss choke shooting the H.W #7's
what were you cleaning the barrel with in between shots? If it was any king of solvent or cleaner that might be your problem.
If your gun shot's 130's consistently I'd just stop wasting bullets and hunt it, some Remington's just don't throw high number patters, 130's is a really good hunting pattern actually. Also from what you shot the more open choke did better than the tighter chokes so in that case maybe Try something else in .575.
Quote from: nyhunter on February 23, 2020, 05:42:34 AM
Tru-Lock Federal Heavyweight choke .560, They dont make this exact choke any more, so finding one might me tough , but they make one for the tss and its a .560 also, I believe someone on here had really good results with the tss choke shooting the H.W #7's
what were you cleaning the barrel with in between shots? If it was any king of solvent or cleaner that might be your problem.
If your gun shot's 130's consistently I'd just stop wasting bullets and hunt it, some Remington's just don't throw high number patters, 130's is a really good hunting pattern actually. Also from what you shot the more open choke did better than the tighter chokes so in that case maybe Try something else in .575.
Didn't use solvent, but did mop the bore after each shot. I think I'm done. I'd like to try a Sumtoy .570 as from what I have seen the numbers seem to go up with a more open choke, but that's for another day. PS. This short barreled 870 is much more finicky then my 870 20 gauge with a 26" barrel. That gun shoot much higher numbers then this one, but I do like having a gun that has an overall length of 39". Much easier to carry in the woods.
check the classifieds asap you might be interested in those carlson chokes
My gun likes a dirty barrel.
Quote from: ahfox16 on February 23, 2020, 06:16:29 AM
Quote from: nyhunter on February 23, 2020, 05:42:34 AM
Tru-Lock Federal Heavyweight choke .560, They dont make this exact choke any more, so finding one might me tough , but they make one for the tss and its a .560 also, I believe someone on here had really good results with the tss choke shooting the H.W #7's
what were you cleaning the barrel with in between shots? If it was any king of solvent or cleaner that might be your problem.
If your gun shot's 130's consistently I'd just stop wasting bullets and hunt it, some Remington's just don't throw high number patters, 130's is a really good hunting pattern actually. Also from what you shot the more open choke did better than the tighter chokes so in that case maybe Try something else in .575.
Didn't use solvent, but did mop the bore after each shot. I think I'm done. I'd like to try a Sumtoy .570 as from what I have seen the numbers seem to go up with a more open choke, but that's for another day. PS. This short barreled 870 is much more finicky then my 870 20 gauge with a 26" barrel. That gun shoot much higher numbers then this one, but I do like having a gun that has an overall length of 39". Much easier to carry in the woods.
you might take a good look at that barrel for machining marks , overall condition. A good deep clean using Allaboutshooting method tried first or even polishing might make a big difference. Denatured alcohol (Sumtoy)? to clean it all out may get it to the 26" numbers.
Believe it was Dell. Savduck on here, who had the tss choke with the Hw7's doing really good.
That seems odd. I shot Fed HW 7's out of my youth 20 / 21" with a Sumtoy 562.5 and it would consistently shoot 170+. I cleaned the barrel prior to / and then just dry brush / dry patch at the bench, nothing crazy.
My son's 870 liked a Carlson's 575 non-ported with Hvy Wt 7s. A Primos tightwad shot very well too.
Quote from: SteelerFan on February 24, 2020, 09:46:03 AM
That seems odd. I shot Fed HW 7's out of my youth 20 / 21" with a Sumtoy 562.5 and it would consistently shoot 170+. I cleaned the barrel prior to / and then just dry brush / dry patch at the bench, nothing crazy.
I've heard they can be finicky. Guess I got one of those. Interesting for me that the higher numbers came with the 575 choke and tighter chokes pretty much sucked.
My same gun was finicky with everything I shot in it. 12 chokes. Bought two different trulock 560 used. The old heavyweight one and the new tss one. One shot 175 first shot, the other shot 176 first shot. Highest I could get out of other chokes was about 140. Also my remington likes a snake bore cleaner run through it, but no chemical cleaned. Truglo ssx was second best choke. Would put up 130/140 patterns.
I tried IC 555, swarm 555, truglo tempest 570 and 555, suntoy 562, remington superfull, carlsons, primos tightwad, and D&D Haymaker 560.
I was looking into buying an 870 compact 20 gauge this week. If I do, I'll be running a jebs Head Hunter 560 or 565.
That jebs 560 in my Stevens 20 gauge was holding 374 #9's in 10" @ 40 yards. Jebs makes an awesome turkey choke!(https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20200228/1bc8b3a49d10649af8646c76420a7e20.jpg)
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Both of mine shoot upper 140s with primos titewad
I'm getting 160-190 in a 10" @ 40 shooting 3" Federal HWT 7s w a Carlson LongBeard .568 out of an 11-87 with 21" bbl
Took a bone stock Rem 870 Youth 21"/ Rem Super Full , deep cleaned it and shooting 150's in a 10 @ 40. Sure has been nice to shoot good patterns right out of the box.
Federal HW 7 and Trulock 565 is the best in my opinion out of my youth 20 ga. 870
I had the same problem with inconsistent numbers and inconsistent poi with the fed hwt 7s. Would shoot 170s and then next shot 80s and 90s. Trulock choke would get the highest numbers but everything I tried had inconsistent results. I sold all of my heavyweight because I was so frustrated with them and I went back to shooting hevi 13. My 870 loved hevi 13 7s but the 6s were what I hunted with. It shot very even patterns with the sixes and was consistently in mid to high 120s. Ended up selling it to a friend of mine but I have another one to get ready. I have two single ahot 20s that had the same problem with the heavyweight 7s.