Remington 870 Left Hand Safety Conversion...

[James R.]

Hey, do any of you know what's invovled in converting the Remington 870 safety over to left handed operation?

I have the Knoxx Spec Ops stock (which Knoxx just shipped back, receiver and all) and despite what they say it does hit the safety button when you press down on the action allowing it to go up the ramp. They may not feel that it's a problem, but I do. It pushes it back in about 1/16" or so, maybe a smidge less.

I've noticed were the safety LH there would be enough clearance that it wouldn't even touch. Given that I'm left handed I'd be more comfortable with this setup anyhow.

I found a few references on line to making this change for like $30 but I don't feel like shipping my gun off to a gunsmith if it's a relatively straight forward thing to do. Heck my FN SLP came right out of the box with the ability to have the safety swapped to lefty. They said you should have a gunsmith do it but IMHO tha'ts lawyer talk, it was quite easy IMHO.

Regards,

James R.

[kantstudien]

Why don't you just learn to shoot the "right" way.

[James R.]

LOL this is the right way, everyone else is wrong! ;-)

Besides, it seems the Knoxx stock would have more clearance for a button which was extended to the right side when on FIRE than it currently does.

Knoxx had my rifle and looked it over and they claim all of this...







including how the trigger guard sits off center in the channel are, "normal" and "part of how it's designed" and "all of our guns here look the same". I find this utterly amazing, but ultimately it doesn't appear to be a functional problem and plenty of people are happy with their SpecOps stock so I'll give it a go. This is a unique product and there really aren't any alternatives that do the same sort of thing as well.

The FACT that the safety button is touched at all however is IMHO not acceptable. When the rifle pushes up the ramp the safety is bumped towards SAFE, from a tactical standpoint this is a horrible situation. Nothing quite like having a rifle auto-magically put itself onto safe between your first and follow up shots. It only pushes it a tiny bit, but it's enough that you can hear a little tick and feel it move back to the fully, "fire" ready state afterwards if you push on it.

Regards,

James R.

[anotherted]

Yeah. I have a pretty good idea of what's involved. Its a little pricey however:

















Buy a Mossy 590.

[tankerman]

Why not just buy a left hand 870

[James R.]

Why not just buy a left hand 870

*groan* Well aside from this question not really helping much (a somewhat common theme here at Calguns as of late) I already own a right handed gun.

First and foremost Remington never offered the 870 HD in a lefty version that I'm aware of. If you goto the site and look around in the lefty section you'll find they offer a LH shotty but it's clad with wood furniture and a 28" vent rib barrel, hardly a good gun for clearing your home ehh?

Even more ironic is the picture they choose for their lefty section is some poor guy shooting a right handed rifle, left handed. How freaking brilliant is that?

Regards,

James R.

PS - I got a reply from Remington and they claim you cannot convert the safety to left handed. This of course flies in the face of numerous places I've found smiths offering to convert your gun for $35 or so. I'm guessing you have to modify something as opposed to just dropping in the safety selector from the left handed version of the 870 Express.

PPS - If all I had were left handed guns I wouldn't have many guns to choose from. My Remington 700 is a lefty, my 10/22 has a lefty stock and my FN has a lefty converted safety...all my other guns are pure right handers and only one, the Rem 700 is a true, "made for lefties" gun.

[James R.]

Yeah. I have a pretty good idea of what's involved. Its a little pricey however:

Buy a Mossy 590.

Yeah only problem there is that it'd be a Mossberg :-P

Regards,

James R.

[anotherted]

Yeah only problem there is that it'd be a Mossberg :-P

Regards,

James R.

Ahh....True.

Wait, i love my 590.

[tankerman]

I also have to deal with the lefthanded issue. You can always change the furniture I believe you can even get shims to change the cast off. There are other barrels also available you just have to be persistent when looking for them, and grab them when they show up.. I don't see why you would want to buy anything brand new in 870. There is much more available used, and waiting around for Remington to produce a shotgun in the configuration you want seems pointless, could be next week could be never.
I wasn't trying to give worthless advice in my last post, I was just being practical. Your choices are limited, 1100, 1187, 870, and expensive benelli's. Oh yah, some salesman told me to try a Beretta something or another, because it ejected straight out.
I am lefthanded, few choices of guns. 6'4" all guns length of pull is so short that it's uncomfortable, and my head is big enough that I have a difficult time getting my eye in line with the shotgun bead, I added a mid-rib bead on one shotguns, that just made me realize even more that I couldn't get my eye lined up, now that I had a reference point to actually see which direction the barrel was pointing.

Buy something made for lefties or live with something thats just never going to be what you want.

www.gunsamerica.com/guns/976522043.htm

870 smoothbore barrel with rifle sights 20"

[James R.]

I also have to deal with the lefthanded issue. You can always change the furniture I believe you can even get shims to change the cast off. There are other barrels also available you just have to be persistent when looking for them, and grab them when they show up.. I don't see why you would want to buy anything brand new in 870. There is much more available used, and waiting around for Remington to produce a shotgun in the configuration you want seems pointless, could be next week could be never.
I wasn't trying to give worthless advice in my last post, I was just being practical. Your choices are limited, 1100, 1187, 870, and expensive benelli's. Oh yah, some salesman told me to try a Beretta something or another, because it ejected straight out.
I am lefthanded, few choices of guns. 6'4" all guns length of pull is so short that it's uncomfortable, and my head is big enough that I have a difficult time getting my eye in line with the shotgun bead, I added a mid-rib bead on one shotguns, that just made me realize even more that I couldn't get my eye lined up, now that I had a reference point to actually see which direction the barrel was pointing.

Buy something made for lefties or live with something thats just never going to be what you want.

www.gunsamerica.com/guns/976522043.htm

870 smoothbore barrel with rifle sights 20"

No harm no foul, just after my last exchange here with Technical Turd ermm Ted my fuse has been shortened a bit. He responded with an utterly worthless reply of, "...." only to come back minutes later and cover his tracks by trying to post something of value. In the end I look like an @$$hole because of an edit. Had he simply posted initially what he posted after the fact everything would have been copacetic, instead he basically calls me a retard and then abandons the thread. Sorry, I tend to hold adults to higher standards than that ;-)

In any event, I already have this 870 so I make do. The only reason I brought up changing the safety to LH is because of this problem pictured above with the Knoxx stock. If you're reading this Larry don't take it personal but if the stock is designed to place the trigger group off center on purpose and to have the safety button struck during recoil on purpose the design frankly needs some re-evaluation. If you've ever fiddled with the 870's safety pulling the trigger and edging the safety over you'll find you don't need to push it far before it will latch up on you. I doubt this would ever happen from the stock striking it, but the mere fact that it not only touches it, but also pushes it back a measurable amount IMHO does not give me the warm and fuzzies.

Now it just so happens that the extent to which it's off center to one side (which causes the safety to hit) would actually provide ample clearance (all else being equal) for a left handed safety. This is verified by putting the gun on safe and then driving the action back into the stock. Under those circumstances there is no contact whatsoever, as it should be. Unfortunately it seems that there aren't any drop in lefty safety solutions for 870's at least none that I've found insofar.

Maybe some day I'll build a lefty 870, but for now I'd be plenty satisfied with lefty safety as it would eliminate the Knoxx thing and I'd get the benefit of a gun that's less fidgety to take off safe under duress. I have an FN SLP as well, while it's a right eject gun at least they were kind enough to build in and document in the manual a provision for reversing the safety to lefty...all hail FN ;-)

The gun I spend the most time with, my Remington 700 is lefty...it's nice. However most of my shooting is from the bench and frankly sometimes I wonder if I wouldn't be better served by a right handed rifle. I could keep my trigger hand on the stock and cycle the bolt and load the gun with my right hand. In fact some of the dedicated bench guns operate on a subset of this idea. You have the bolt on one side and you eject on the opposite side, for instance the Stolle Panda can be had this way.

Regards,

James R.

[kantstudien]

So did you ever find out how to switch the safety?

[James R.]

Well I spoke to Remington and they claim they can offer no assistance, they do not make a drop in LH safety for the gun and the stock piece according to them cannot be reveresed. I was referred to Brownells, MidwayUSA etc to look for a solution, one however was not found. There were plenty of big-button aftermarket type safeties, but none which converted to LH.

Looks like I'd need to go the gunsmith route or tear the gun down and try and figure it out on my own.

It's less urgent now as I've pulled off the Knoxx SpecOps stock, the combo of all that crap moving and my shell saddle plus being left handed = cuts on my trigger finger below the knuckle which was the last straw. My Davis SpeedFeed IV just showed up 5 mins ago via Mr. Postman ;-)

Regards,

James R.

[kmca]

JamesR,
I'm not quite sure I understand your question. If you mean converting the safety to be "off" when pushed in from the left side, that's a fairly simiple fix. I've done it on my 870's, 1100's and 11-87's, let me know. If that's not what you're talking about...sorry.

Regards,
Keith

[James R.]

JamesR,
I'm not quite sure I understand your question. If you mean converting the safety to be "off" when pushed in from the left side, that's a fairly simiple fix. I've done it on my 870's, 1100's and 11-87's, let me know. If that's not what you're talking about...sorry.

Regards,
Keith

Yep, I'm a left handed shooter and it would be nice if when I mount the gun I could click the safety off using my trigger finger in the same fashion right handed shooters enjoy (left swapped for right of course). If you know of an easy and safe way to do this I'm all ears. I don't know if it matters but I have that lame J safety integral lock thing on mine :-(

Regards,

James R.

[ke6guj]

I don't have an 870, but I did swap the safety on my Beretta. It has a similar looking push button safety, and all I had to do was to remove the safety, reverse it, and reinstall.

There is a spring-loaded detent inside the trigger group that keeps the safety from popping out. I was able to depress the detent, and then slide the safety out. I then reversed it and then reinstalled it while depressing the detent out of the way. TADA, left-handed safety.