870 barrels

[stickbow]

Hi All , don't know a lot about shotguns so I maybe asking a dumb question here but here it goes
I have an early '70s Remington 870 wingmaster , I want to put a rifled barrel on. So my question is can I use ANY 870 barrel
Or is it gen.specific or wingmaster only......or ?

 

[rembolt]

Any wingmaster or express barrel will fit your receiver .

 

[stickbow]

Thanks Rembolt

 

[Claven2]

While any barrel will fit, look for one with a spring loaded detent on the barrel ring as it will work best with your magazine cap. If you get a barrel without this, you will need additional parts to keep the mag cap from shooting loose, such as a wave washer or similar. Alternately, a gunsmith can convert it to detent for around $50 or so.

 

[radmacks]

I too have an older wingmaster and picked up an 870 express barrel. The magazine tubes were different lengths and the newer barrels mounting ring was higher up the barrel and would not work. So there is that to consider along with what was mentioned above. Your Wingmaster is ball & detent where as the newer ones are ratchet type. It has been said that a washer will fix the issue of it coming loose.

 

[struff55]

Wingmaster to wingmaster will work fine as for the rest of Remington's junk what ever they call them may not be compatible

 

[Claven2]

I too have an older wingmaster and picked up an 870 express barrel. The magazine tubes were different lengths and the newer barrels mounting ring was higher up the barrel and would not work. So there is that to consider along with what was mentioned above. Your Wingmaster is ball & detent where as the newer ones are ratchet type. It has been said that a washer will fix the issue of it coming loose.

This is VERY unlikely. Somer people report what you are describing if the express barrel fits a little too tight in the older receiver and doesn't seat down all the way. These older receivers were manually machined and can potentially be a little undersized compared to a modern CNC made barrel, but it's rare that a new barrel will not fully fit. Even if so, it could still be fitted by someone who knows what they are doing. On rare occasion, I have had to fit them, but it was not a big deal to do so. Usually involver reducing collar diabetes of the barrel extension by a coupe thou, or relieving the ejection port lip on the extension so shells would clear the ejection port. I can't overstate how uncommon that is though.

The only other possibility is that the barrel was off a 7 round defence shotgun, or your receiver was a short breaching version, but that would be really obvious. Otherwise all 870's are backwards compatible.