Rem 870 shoots left FIXED!

Ganderite

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I have a 20" slug barrel for it that uses rifle sights and shoots perfectly.

Just bought a 28" barrel that takes screw in chokes. This barrel shoots about a foot left at 25 yards.

It does not have a front sight. The hole for the bead is there, but no bead, so I put on one of those plastic collars that has a fibre optic sight on it.

Withe new sight lined up with the hole, it shoots left. With the collar turned so the sight is at 11 o'clock, the hits are closer to the middle, but the sight picture sucks.

Should I bend the barrel? Or is there another fix?

REPORT: I stuck the barrel between the forks of a big tree and pushed a few times. Now it shoots POA.
 
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Definitely try different chokes. I had a barrel cut one time and a poly choke installed. It would print slugs 24" low and 8 right at 40 yds. pattern centre was about the same. After market screw in chokes were only wild dreams back then, so I had a smith do some barrel bending. It is a very gentle operation bending barrel to change point of impact. If your going that route choose someone with successful experience at it. Your other option would be to sell the barrel and buy another, but you may be just buying a new problem. The present barrel is either slightly warped or the threading for the choke tubes is not concentric to the bore. Remington shotgun barrels are not pieces of great precision machining. A good shotgun gunsmith should be able to diagnose which issue is prevalent.
 
I had the same issue with slugs and a cylinder bore 20 inch Rem barrel. Shot didn't seem the be affected noticeably, or at least to the same degree.
 
My 870 28" throws the shot the the left with my modified choke in it. Not as bad as OP's situation; just adding my two cents. Gunwas purchased 3 years ago.

Cannon
 
I've got my dad's ithaca 300 and it shoots slightly right. Don't notice a huge difference with shot but really noticable with slugs. Years ago they were out duck hunting and rolled the vehicle they were driving and his barrel just got slightly bent. The other 2 guys shotguns were bent and smashed up so bad they were unfixable (so I was told). I don't shoot slugs out of it for hunting and with shot it's not bad enough to make it that I have to compensate poa.
 
Best type of tree for bent barrel defense?

yeah, this could turn into a good hardwood/softwood debate.

Hardwood would seem the most likely choice, however since we're talking subtlety here might want a bit of give in your tree choice. Then a course there's tree type subgroups ..
 
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