I had a local gunsmith install a fiber optic bead on my plain barrel 870. Now choke tubes don't screw in easily. I expect he put the barrel in a padded vise to drill out the old bead and squeezed the barrel. I can't see that anything's out of round but something is different. From what I can see, the treads are not damaged.
I haven't shot it yet. Should I be concerned?
Check and see if the sight screw is to long and sticks down into the barrel where the choke goes. That may be your problem.
Quote from: joker on February 24, 2012, 06:41:07 PM
Check and see if the sight screw is to long and sticks down into the barrel where the choke goes. That may be your problem.
Thanks but,
I checked that already and can see fine marks where the sight screw had been ground off. Nothing is sticking out inside the barrel and the chokes aren't scratched.
Ground off on the inside of the barrel?
Wow,Not good,Check the screw length and ask him what he did?
You know the old adage, "better safe than sorry". I would suspect it will be fine, but I believe I'd take it back to the guy and ask him to check it out. If you were shooting dove loads, I probably wouldn't think much about it, but I suspect there is a lot of pressure using turkey loads.
I think it should go back immediately. i would be very unhappy.
If you had no issues before he worked on it take it back and give him a chance to fix it.
Have you cleaned the threads in the barrel good? Sometimes junk can get in them and it only takes a small piece to make things difficult.
Quote from: Tom Foolery on February 26, 2012, 07:36:07 AM
Have you cleaned the threads in the barrel good? Sometimes junk can get in them and it only takes a small piece to make things difficult.
I cleaned the threads several times using a nylon brush and hoppes. That helped a lot. Must have been fine grindings in the threads that the Bore Snake left behind.
Now my RemChokes screw in like they always have, nice and easy.
I also tried a custom choke and it's a little tight. I measured the choke's OD at the threads and it's .001"- .002" larger than the factory chokes' OD. I shot it today and everything went great.
Thanks for all the help.
Glad it worked out.
God Bless,
David B.
Good deal.
Last time I polished mine there was a little junk in the threads and I like to have never got it cleaned out. My chokes was almost impossible to screw in with the threads gunked up.