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11-87 help

J

jfluhr18

New Member
Just purchased an 11-87 sportsman on black Friday. Dicks had a great deal and I could not pass it up.
So now I have some questions about what I should do with it. I plan on using it for 1st season shotgun this weekend so I am running out of time. I purchased an improv. cylinder choke and plan on using the field barrel this season unless I can find a used slug barrel in the next few days. (Dont think I will).
My question is should I use the iron sight that it comes with, put tru-glo sights on it or put a mount and a scope on it? We do drives so my shots are usually 50 - 100 yards. Any suggestions would be great as I have only been hunting for a few years and don't have a ton of knowledge when it comes to guns.
Also, what slugs have you had luck with with the same setup? I've always used the winchester riffled slugs with my 870 smooth bore(now my backup gun).
 
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For a field barrel, I wouldn't go to a lot of effort. If it has a sight already, it should be fine. Tru-glo's are very nice tho in low light. Or if you're old like me. And the imp. cyl. tube should be fine with any regular slug. You shouldn't have probs. with slugs, but 11-87s sometimes need a break-in period. When new a lot of them won't eject the lower powered rounds. Speaking from experience here. I've been repairing guns over 35 yrs.. If you encounter this, just shoot the hell out of it with a load it'll throw. Soon it will toss everything.
 
My general rule of thumb is if you are shooting over 75 yards, put a scope on it. I will be toting the same gun but I have a hastings cantilever barrel on it with a 3x9x40 scope. The gun is scary accurate shooting lightfields or remington copper solids. Granted you will have a smooth bore with a choke if you don't find a barrel so the winchester rifle slugs will probably work. The hastings barrel is worth its weight in gold though.
 
100-150 yards on a smooth bore without some serious sighting in is asking for a wounded deer, imo. I would spend some time with this gun FOR SURE. I have an 11-87 with a RIFLED barrel, 3x9x40 Leupold Shotgun scope & Gold Partition slugs and I sure spend a lot of time knowing how the gun performs from 100-175 yards. with a rifled slug, like a Lightfield or Brenake or something, you might wanna lower your max distance and you should be shooting a regular rifled slug outta that and not a sabot. Might wanna look at 3" rifled slug ballistics too. I am a bowhunter but sure spent some time on my rarely used shotgun & know they need time to get em dialed in and figured out! If you're gonna take those longer shots- you pry wanna get a scope on asap and get to the range multiple days- not at the last minute for 1 sight in.

NEXT season I for sure would recommend you getting a rifled barrel, scope, Gold Partition slugs (by far is what shoots best outta Remingtons from my experience, much better than say a Hornady outta a Remington) and spend a lot of time from 100-150 (and closer of course) to really know that gun. Good luck!
 
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Bought the exact same gun last year with the cantilever barrel. Put a Leupold 1-4x20 scope on it. Was awesome while sitting. Not so much when pushing. Very tough to lock on in the timber (obviously).

Since I am one of the younger ones in my group I get stuck pushing....a lot.... :) So this year I changed it up and sold the scope and cantilever barrel and bought a smooth bore barrel with rifle sights. Hated the rifle sights that came on it so I did some research and found this:

http://www.williamsgunsight.com/gunsights/image_remghost.htm

Will be using it in the field for the first time this weekend but from what I have seen just target shooting it is awesome. Very quick aquiring the target. Pretty accurate out to 75 yards using the old winchester slugs from walmart. If I am sitting I will have the muzzy with me anyway to reach out and touch something. Plus the williams sight is only around 30 bucks so I am not spending a fortune and also not modifying anything on the gun.

As far as the field barrel I wouldn't do anything special. Just shoot a little this week to get a feel for it and then let some cheap slugs fly come this weekend!
 
breckhawk said:
Bought the exact same gun last year with the cantilever barrel. Put a Leupold 1-4x20 scope on it. Was awesome while sitting. Not so much when pushing. Very tough to lock on in the timber (obviously).

Since I am one of the younger ones in my group I get stuck pushing....a lot.... :) So this year I changed it up and sold the scope and cantilever barrel and bought a smooth bore barrel with rifle sights. Hated the rifle sights that came on it so I did some research and found this:

http://www.williamsgunsight.com/gunsights/image_remghost.htm

Will be using it in the field for the first time this weekend but from what I have seen just target shooting it is awesome. Very quick aquiring the target. Pretty accurate out to 75 yards using the old winchester slugs from walmart. If I am sitting I will have the muzzy with me anyway to reach out and touch something. Plus the williams sight is only around 30 bucks so I am not spending a fortune and also not modifying anything on the gun.

As far as the field barrel I wouldn't do anything special. Just shoot a little this week to get a feel for it and then let some cheap slugs fly come this weekend!
Click to expand...

Thanks breckhawk. Exactly what I am looking for.
Question though. I dont have the riffle sights as its the field barrel(One front sight). Are there options for tru-glo with my setup? or can it be modified to put riffled sights on?
Thanks
 
If you are doing a lot of deer drives I would use an open site because trying to find a running deer in a scope isn't very easy. Also I would try real real hard to find a slug barrel because trying to pattern a smooth bore barrel is pretty tough.
 
I have an 11-87 with the rifled cantrlever barrel and have a "Red Dot" type scope on it. It works great for driving or sitting, just make sure to always have extra betteries with you cuz if you run out the only thing you can do is throw your gun at them. I also shoot Hornaday SST's out of mine and it's a tack driver. I have yet to recover a slug from a deer, always blow right through them..

Here is the type of scope I put on mine:

http://www.cabelas.com/product/Hunting/Optics/Red-Dots-Lasers%7C/pc/104791680/c/104752080/sc/104526180/EOTech-Holographic-Weapon-Sights/1217874.uts?destination=%2Fcatalog%2Fbrowse%2Fhunting-optics-red-dots-lasers%2F_%2FN-1100061%2FNs-CATEGORY_SEQ_104526180%3FWTz_l%3DSBC%253BMMcat104791680%253Bcat104752080&WTz_l=SBC%3BMMcat104791680%3Bcat104752080%3Bcat104526180

Otherwise, get some Winchester rifled slugs and shoot those out your field barrel. Shoot it so you know where the iron/tru-glo sights are at and go hunting. I wouldn't shoot much more than 70 yards with open sights though if deer are running. Improved cylinder is your choke choice..

You are gonna love that gun.. I can't believe I waited so long to get one.
 
Take a look at this one. It may be originally designed for turkey hunting, but it should still be applicable for what you want. I had a friend mount this to his turkey gun a few years ago and I was impressed with it.

http://www.cabelas.com/product/Truglo174-Universal-Tru-Bead-Turkey-Xtreme-Shotgun-Sight/741597.uts?Ntk=AllProducts&searchPath=%2Fcatalog%2Fsearch.cmd%3Fform_state%3DsearchForm%26N%3D0%26fsch%3Dtrue%26Ntk%3DAllProducts%26Ntt%3Dshotgun%2Bsights%26WTz_l%3DHeader%253BSearch-All%2BProducts&Ntt=shotgun+sights&WTz_l=Header%3BSearch-All+Products

Like everyone else has said, spend quality time with it before the opener!
 
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