Dominion grizzly reliability?

madashell said:
For the most part yes. However, sometimes random parts need a little fitting. On mine, by far the worst was trying a Remington barrel on it. The DA receiver indexing was so bad the sights pointed to about 11:00.

I like the DA grizzly a lot for the money. However, my bottom line take on it; if you're going to mod the snot out of it buy a good old Wingmaster receiver and build from there. Cost ends up in the same ballpark anyway and with the WM you end up in a better place IMO.
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I'll agree the first couple years of production seemed like fit/finish was lacking (but I think they've come a long way since then). To be fair though, it's not like the express hasn't had it's share of issues. I don't think every grizz/870 needs a complete tear down out of the box, but a couple cheap mods make them a whole lot more reliable and fun to shoot.

Your mileage may vary of course.
 
Two marauding black bears that kept busting my wooden garbage box apart bowled over by my da grizzly like they were made of lead.
Those 1 ounce soft lead slugs are great nuisance bear medicine and that 12.5" barrel swings on target fast.
Ghost ring sights are fantastic.
The fact that the gun is a bit on the heavy side is a good thing when firing 3" rifled slug rounds.
Perfect gun for cottage, campsite defense.
 
I bought one because it had a 12.5 inch barrel and would be a handy bush gun .
Finish was very rough and the gun had extraction problems , however after polishing the chamber and a tiny bit of filing on the extractor , the problem was solved .
Next problem was the bolt rubbing the underside of the receiver ( bad machining at the factory had left too much material inside ) .
Half an hour with a half round file solved that problem .
Now the gun performs reliably .
It is heavy and I will change the ugly plastic furniture to wood 870 forend and stock . But they will require some work to make them fit .
All in all , it is a rather roughly machined gun , but basically sound .
Try to handle one in the store and pick one with a smooth action .
Put a few hundred rounds through it before you trust it for bear protection and the like .
Would I buy another one ? Maybe, but if I had a good Remington 870 around not doing much , I would just put a short Grizzly barrel on it .
Hope this helps.
 
Tube fed reliable ? YES!! Magazine fed : sadly nope, not reliable enough if your life is on the line. Had to modify magazines and it's still marginally better, but perfect NO.
 
My HP9-1 has been super reliable. So much so that it is my house long gun.

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There are essentially 2 ways to go for the price point - either a Grizzly and the minor tweaks mentioned, or an old Wingmaster and a few minor tweaks, oh and a barrel ($$$). The economics on the used Wingmaster are very good, and you get a lovely gun for the money but overall the Grizzly is still a solid, reliable, available gun that costs less. Given a choice between a Grizzly and an Express 870, I'd take the Grizzly.
 
hollowedpoint said:
Tube fed reliable ? YES!! Magazine fed : sadly nope, not reliable enough if your life is on the line. Had to modify magazines and it's still marginally better, but perfect NO.
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I'd trust mine in the bush, I've de burred and polished the internals and mags. Opened up and polished the opening of the chamber mouth and feedramp, it's feeds 2 3/4" shells 100% and with some more minor mag lip tweaking I'll have it feeding 3" shells reliably as well.

Anyone that says their mag fed isn't reliable just needs to take a bit more time and tune it with regards to mags, I snipped a coil or two out of the aftermarket metal mags and they now work like the factory mag. The factory mag always fed perfect for me, if you don't like to tinker just get a tube fed. My wife has a tube fed and it's been 100% from the get go.
 
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