ChasinTail

I have a regular Remington 870 express with a 28" barrel.

What can I add to it to make it a better gun for deer?

Would some glo sights like for turkey suffice, would it be accurate with a slug?

bghunter777

Depends on the yardages you are looking to shoot. I would go shoot the 870 off a bench see where it is hitting if its substantially off then an adjustable fiber optic site would add accuracy.

Your best bet would be to put a slug barrel on it but if that is not an option keep your shots to 40-50 yards and closer.1000s of deer have fallen to shotguns set up just like yours.

Shoot your gun see where its point of impact is and have fun hunting!

jrbsr

You could use 00 Buckshot.
8 to 12 - 30 cal balls of lead is deadly for deer.
It is what I used for my biggest buck.

A lot of deer have been taken with it.

JMHO

Father Forkhorn

+1 on the slug barrel.

It's hard to go wrong with better sights. Even a fiber optic bead on the end or a dab of paint to make a bead easier to see would probably help. Can a scope be mounted?

Slug barrel or not, just like rifles, try different slugs to see the results. Some may shoot better than others.

Another idea I just had: Maybe develop and experiment with some sort of shooting rest, shooting sticks, even a tripod. We often shoot from a rest with a rifle, and then abandon that for some reason when we start shooting slugs out of a shotgun. I'm not sure why.

Hoyt63

I had an 870 express with a rifled slug barrel,4x weaver scope and shot 3in Sabots.I was good out to 150 yards.Has a nice kick to it shooting 3in Sabots.

jerseyhunter

B square makes a see under scope mount bracket. You hammer out the trigger pins and install the mount with the longer pins they provide. Then you can get a slug barrel and inter change it with your bird barrel. The scope stays on the deer barrel.

gonewest

I would just use your 870 for upland and purchase a Savage model 220 20 ga. They shoot like a bolt action rifle to 150 yds. If that all you can use is shotgun I would invest 450 dollars and be done never to worry about it again.

fastetti

I used my 870 growing up as a bird gun. Around 30 when I started to hunt my home state of Illinois for deer I bought the Hastings 870 barrel with cantilever mount and scope. I think I paid $160 for it. Now it is exclusively me deer gun. All you have to do is screw on the new barrel and sight the scope in and you'll be read to go. Even if you still use it as a bird gun all you have to do is unscrew the barrel and put the other one on and you'll be ready to go.

NjHunter85

personally I am a mossberg man myself i could give you all kinds of info on them but the idea of what you wanna do is all the same. if you dont want to put a slug barrel on it invest in a nice choke tube. you can get some nice ones from browning, indian creek, etc. get a ported choke. every gun is different so one choke might work well on 1 gun and not on others. but you can also get a red dot scope or a nice fiber optic setup. i think truglo has a turkey setup that the front sight is a raised fiber optic triangle with a rear sight you line up in the middle of the triangle pretty cool. the thing about just a shotgun is there is room for error when shooting buckshot. so investing in a high end scope or something is really unnessecary. but a simple red dot scope or an upgraded fiber optic setup instead of the small single fiber optic is a good start.

NjHunter85

a choke tube will make an awesome improvement though. do some research and see what guys with your gun have had good luck with. carlsons is another company that makes good chokes. As far as going the other way with a slug setup that would be where you would want a decent scope or better than average ammunition. I like the nikon slughunter it is a great affordable slug scope. also like i said instead of buying cheap ammo try a couple diff higher end sabots. other than getting into custom stuff like trigger work etc thats the 2 best things you can do.( scope, ammo). good luck with it let us know what you do.