Remington M870 Review page
|
(click for a larger image) |
|
"A homage to possibly the most fun airsoft gun, I have ever used."
or
"oh-so macho, but rather impractical..."
So where's the review? Well I'm starting on the m870 review, but I've been so preoccupied of late that it's been a little difficult to get things going. I'm going to try and break out the digital camera sometime soon and get some decent photos taken of it.
I'm working on the review right now.. well kinda, I do have a life of my own outside of airsoft. Yes! It is possible.
The 'boom stick' has had it's first outing at Sopley (our local urban site), so I can now finally write about what it was like to use for a skirmish. While I get that written I've posted a few links here, and some info about what I plan to do with my latest acquisition:
Options additions and modifications.
I'm currently looking into fitting a combined light/laser system to the front of the shotgun, to compensate for the lack of sights, I've found a few pages that list suitable parts and ideas.
Magazine Shell-Tube Extension:
|
|
I'm also looking to extending the magazine tube, to take up to 7+1 shells, rather than the current 4+1. This is a fairly simple process, as all you need is to extend the lower tube, by threading on an extension, and fitting a new spring of the correct length. |
| I believe the the currently available kits for the real steel will work for the airsoft version. I have seen kits (shown in the embedded image) that include the pipe and the spring. I'm also after the "barrel clamb" that holds the upper barrel to the magazine tube, again this is shown on the left.. Here in the UK, it's a little difficult to get these kits, as pump-action shotguns are frowned upon, and I believe that we are limited to the number of shells we can have in a civilian model. The two images shown here are from Advanced Technology who sell various kits for the real-steel Remington shotguns, including pistol grip pumps, and light mounts. |
 |
SureFire Light/Laser Mounting:
 |
Another option I'm looking into is the the fixing of an aiming device to the M870. As the rifle comes out the box, it has no sights on it, so it's simply a case of point (& hope) and shoot. While this isn't a great problem for a shotgun, I'd like to see where I'm pointing the barrel. I wish to remedy this with a pressure activated laser sight. The best kits for this have seen are the SureFire torches, that have an option to replace the lamp unit with a laser bulb. |
| The fixing can be done by either replacing the original pump grip with a SureFire replacement (with I'm not keen on as that'll cost a lot to do), or the cheaper method, that simply involves clamping the unit to the lower shell tube. This is achieved with the use of a piece of steel with a hole through the centre, a notch at the top (for the upper barrel), and a clamb attached to the bottom for fitting the SureFire lamp to. You can see this fairly clearly in the image to the left. |
 |
Update 30/01/03 "Oh bugger dropped it" - or - "Getting to that gas tank....": Well I've been meaning to get the M870 review written for some time now, and sadly haven't had a free moment to do so. Well the sad news is that upon clearing the toy cupboard, the M870 fell off the top shelf onto the floor, cracking the rear stock near the pistol grip.
Now although this doesn't spell doom for the 870 it was a bit of a bugger. The stock can easily be fixed with some Araldite and a small patch on the inside, and you'd never know.
The good news about the incident was that it gave me a chance to take the 870 to bits. Now getting it to bits is the easy part, it's getitng it back together that is the real pain. For anyone that is interested to get the grip/gas system out you need to push the two pins out above the trigger guard in the side of the frame. I would not recommend this though as I have no idea what to do from there - plus the mechanism is rather well..complex. I'll save doing that for when I need to do some serious work on it.
Now we all know the gas on the 870 is, well.. somewhat weak. So why is this? well strip off the stock by removing the gas tank and unscrewing the bolt that you find there and the stock will slide off. Don't pull it out yet, first you'll find a large 'jacket' inside the stock that the gas tank sat in, pull this forward and you'll find a brass gas nozzle at the end that pokes into the tank. This is secured by a pin - remove that pin, then the nozzle, and now you can pull the whole stock off - be careful to feed the gas hose out without damaging it. Look after that pin.. it's crucial and easy to loose. ^_^
Now
it'll hit you, that is why the power is so shoddy, look at
how long that gas hose is! Seen in the photos you'll see that the
hose is over a foot long, and as it's been looped/folded up in the
stock it has constricting bends in it (where the sides touch). Now
if you are looking for a simple power upgrade you can cut the hose
to the length it needs to be and rebuild from here, but that wasn't
good enough for me.
I've been looking for something fun to build for a bit, and I have a spare SG1 grip hanging around, so the word "keymaster" has been ringing in my ears.
One
short runble in the magic cupboard again and I've got the 3PSA/SMK
CO2 powerlet adapter. Now I though I recognised that hose dimension!
The CO2 adapter really is a much underrated piece of gear, as with
a valve adapter it'll fit just about anything, find something with
a BV style gas hose, and you're laughing all the way to the next
skirmish.
If you'll remember I've mentioned a few times in forums around the world that the Maruzen M870 really has issues with much more that 3x0.2g BBs in one shell. Well sling in a CO2 capulet into this design, and you'll be smiling. The new gas system kicks out at least 2 times the power. It's impossible to chrono the unit effectively, but it puts out 5 0.2g BBs without a problem, and sticking one BB in the pipe it goes clean through a folded Sunday paper.. sadly no beer cans were available for testing as recently I've been purchasing Asahi lager (in bottles) as it's on offer at the local market. ^_^ Please note I am merely being conservative with my guesses here at this time, if I had to lay out money on it, it's doing around 3J. Some people may wince at this, but remember the CO2 adapter can be unwound to provide lower PSIs, and this shotty has no hopup and is designed to fire multiples of BBs, so should be safe even cranked up to the max with this new setup... in short, don't take my recommendations and go and hook this system up to try to create a pain stick - that's not the point. I was merely disappointed with the present gas-system so have been looking for something interesting to do with it.
I will be trying this setup shortly on the field to see how it fairs, merely for ranging tests, not for skirmishing yet.
As you'll notice in the photos, I've hooked the adapter into the 870 by attaching it to the gas hose - this is very easy to do, but I couldn't get the original hose off the Maruzen brass gas nozzle, as it'd been on for some time, so was sadly forced to chop off some of the length to free the pipe. There's no great loss here though, as there's soooo much pipe there anyway.
The Maruzen gas pipe is rather poor, it can be crushed (look closely at the photos and you can see the bends form it being in the stock), and it's not reinforced to maintain its 'roundness', so I will be replacing the hose with something more akin to SMK/3PSA's gas hose that comes with their rig, as it's much more rugged and useable.
You'll also notice that I have the shell catcher in the shots, this is merely as I'm looking for somewhere to hide the new gas tank - I think I'll hide it in a false hi-cap/readymag system, but that is for me to decide later. All I know is that at the moment it won't fit in the SG1 grip...bugger.
Comment on this article in the forums
Site
links:
3PSA/SMK
CO2 powerlet adapter review
External Links
Reviews
"Airsoft
Base"
:M870 review -the only English review I could find
Doraguner's
M870 Riot version review - a review in Japanese
"Airsoft
Guns in Russia" M870 review - a review in Russian
Other
Interesting links:
Remington
M870 Manual - The official manual for the real-steel
Remington Pump action
SureFire
Tac Mount - A Page with details of kits to mount Surefire
lights and lasers onto the shotgun
Magazine
Extension Kit @ ATI Gun Stocks - details of magasine
extension tubes for the M870/M1100
Operator's
Manual - the official US Government's operators guide
to the M870
Custom
Remington 870 laser mounting - a custom
method for fitting a laser unit to the end of the 870, not a method
I would recommend though.
"The
Tactical Shotgun"
- an article about shotguns and their use in a tactical environment.
It's a VERY good read
The original website is from this page here: http://www.angelfire.com/tx/ShotGun/
"The MultiPurpose Shotgun"
Copyright 2003Arnie's Airsoft.