GUNS Magazine Combat Special Edition Feature: Grizzly Custom 870

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As featured in the GUNS Combat 2010 Special Edition

Grizzly Custom 870
New Life For An Old War Horse

By Rich Grass
Photos Dave Douglas

A lock, a manual, cleaning brush and rod, and a fitted hard-polymer case are all part of the deal.

My phone rang one day, as it sometimes does, and an
unfamiliar voice was on the line. It was Lew Bonitz, gunsmith.
I knew something of Lew’s work from the time he was building
guns in Arizona, but had never gotten to meet him.

"Do you have a Remington 870?" he asked.

In fact, I’d come into possession of a police department trade-in, an older 870 with a 20" bead sighted barrel and old wood furniture. It’d seen better days, but it was mechanically sound.

"I understand you wanted to do an 870 project but things got delayed," said Lew. "So now I have a Hardigg case with your name on it, so let’s do the project now," he finished. We went over some details and I made a few calls. One was to arrange the LPA Ghost Ring sight. I also spoke to my friends at Brownells. They sent along some sundry parts, specifically the Hogue Overmolded furniture.

Mesa Tactical sent along their SureShell Shotshell Carrier and a Magazine Clamp that connected the one-shot magazine extension with a rail that just so happened to fit the SureFire Model 6P LED flashlight provided by SureFire. A Wilderness Heavy Duty Sling rounded out the parts for the soon-to-be re-made shotgun. I thought a rebuild of a beater is something most of us have thought about. I wanted to "do one" to see what it was like.
Lew asked me to contact someone to get a sleeve of Federal Tactical Buckshot so he could conduct some tests. At the time, I didn’t know for sure what he’d do. I made a few calls and the deal was done.

Mesa Tactical’s SureShell shell holder, Aimpoint sight and LPA ghost ring rear sight
(for back-up in this case) helped to turn this beater into a swan.

Grizzly Custom Guns

Lew Bonitz had moved from Arizona to the fringes of Glacier National Park. He opened up his shop, a place that does some interesting jobs. Aside from general gunsmithing, they do custom shotgun work: custom 1911 pistols, bolt action rifles and — a favorite of mine — lever action rifles. Pictures on the Web site show a very interesting Scout Rifle as well.

Some of the 1911 pistols offered include a "Retro" (the old style custom-improved 1911 from days gone by) and a custom 10mm 1911. Grizzly will also do a custom 1911 using the Marvel .22 Conversion unit, and a couple of iterations of fighting 1911s bearing the 1* logo used by SWAT units around the country and originated by Gary Johnston. That Gary permits use of the 1* is high praise for the product from Montana.

Speaking of shotguns, Grizzly has several package deals if you want boiler-plate instead of selecting a la carte. The Home Defense Package — cleaning it up inside and out from sharp edges and burrs, honing the bore, lengthening the forcing cone, staking loose shell stops and a rough trigger, along with sights and a few extras — you won’t break the bank and you’ll have a superb defense piece.

A Tactical Package, the 1* Package, a Breaching Package, the Patrolman Package and a CQB Package round out the (high) standard package deals. For law enforcement agencies, Grizzly Custom is able to provide NFA guns (e.g., the Patrolman, CQB and Breaching 870s). The shop has the NFA Special Occupational Tax stamp and is a licensed manufacturer

Grizzly’s big safety is fast and sure.

The 870 Returns

My old 870 barrel was too thin to be treated with back-boring, so Grizzly Custom provided a new barrel. Tim Cronin lengthened the forcing cone, back-bored the barrel and honed the bore. For those so inclined, Grizzly also installs RemChokes on their tactical shotguns, depending on the customer’s needs.

Tim smoothed the action, making this shotgun about the slickest 870 I’ve ever handled. A trigger job was done too, something I don’t usually consider in a shotgun like this. Well, it has a nice trigger, very smooth. I noticed it and, from here on, it’s something I’d consider for any shotgun. The loading and ejection ports were dehorned, making them snag free. The shell stops were checked to ensure they were properly staked.

Lew is now making some parts for the 870 and they’re on this gun. He used the new Grizzly Big Head safety, a large dome, which is quickly pressed off even for a right-handed shooter. He had originally discussed a 2-shot magazine extension, but I think a little goes a long way. I had him use a one-shot extension. That is also manufactured by Grizzly, as is a two-shot extension. The extension is made from one piece of billet steel and has a hex base. An extra-power magazine spring was provided from Wolf Springs. The follower is also a Grizzly product, made from aluminum, hard anodized and finished in high visibility green. It has a center hole, useful when checking the magazine’s "loaded" status by feel in the dark.

The LPA ghost ring rear sight was modified and relocated to the rear of the receiver on a mounting block. A M1913 rail extends across the top of the receiver to its end. The front sight is silver-soldered aboard the barrel and it has a tritium vial, making it show up in adverse light conditions.

The entire piece was satin matte bead blasted and blued, and that finish was simply superb. The gun was test fired and sighted in.

A Wilderness Heavy Duty sling kept the shotgun handy.

Mesa Tactical’s magazine extention also happened to fit the SureFire light — nifty.

Shooting It

I eventually received a very heavy box; long and unwieldy. Opening it, the Hardigg Storm case slid out. I popped the latches and saw this thing. The light wasn’t attached, but it rides outboard from the starboard side of the barrel. In seconds, the light was attached to its section of accessory rail on the Mesa Tactical Magazine Clamp.

At the range, I stapled a 4" bullseye target up and stepped back to the 25 yard line. Without doing another thing, I dropped a round of Speer Lawman 1-ounce slug into the ejection port, chambered it and mounted the shotgun.

Epiphany Number One: With the ghost ring sight, in a patent-pending design, set so far back, it really is a ghost ring! Peer through the ring at the front sight and the ring vanishes. So that’s what Jeff Cooper was describing.

I pressed the trigger and put the slug through the center of the 4" bull.

Epiphany Number Two: Trigger jobs on Remington 870s really are the deal. It wasn’t super-light, it just lacked that certain grittiness and had no creep to speak of.

I only took the slugs back to 50 yards, but it’s fair to say that passing shotgun qualification won’t be a problem with the Grizzly Custom 870. I went through my buckshot supply and selected three loads. A Gunsite Option target, supplied by Brownells, went up.

At seven yards, I tried a head shot with Hornady TAP, the LE load for pump guns. The 9-pellet charge went into a cluster measuring 1 7/8". Forgetting the offset between the front sight’s top and the center of the bore at that distance, I put the pattern low.

I used another target at ten yards and one round of Federal Tactical Buck, an eight-pellet 00 kind. The pattern measured 1 3/8".

The center ring of my Gunsite Option target fell victim to a round of Speer Lawman nine-pellet 00 Buck, fired from 15 yards. Remember the old saw about cylinder bore guns — particularly police riot guns? “The spread of pattern is about one inch per yard of travel from the muzzle.” Try just a little over half of that, at 7 5/8". The pattern was evenly distributed through the maximum-scoring 8" “V” ring.

Finally, I used another round of Hornady TAP Police — the load tailored for pump shotguns. All nine pellets hit in a horizontal pattern 8" long. The vertical spread was 4" at 25 yards.

It’s kinda hard to beat that, unless you’re using slugs.

Built like a Russian T-34 Tank (but finished much nicer!), the LPA
ghost ring is tough and actually acts like a “ghost” in use.

Conclusion

If you want a fighting shotgun customized to your needs, you have another choice. The liberals tell us choice is a good thing. Well, capitalists say that too. It breeds competition. When someone produces a custom tool like this, other shotgun customizers will take note.

This is now the world of the semiauto carbine in police work. The Grizzly Custom treatment makes the shotgun a viable tool in spite of the rifle era. The tight patterns, slug accuracy, along with the versatility the battle carbine will never have, this gun has it all. Mount an optic, like the Aimpoint Micro-T1 and you have a force multiplier. The short stock is no hindrance to good shooting and even our size XXL troops wear body armor, right? The armor moves the gun away from your face.

The 12" length of pull Hogue stock works just fine for me even without armor. The rubberized texture of the rigid stock and forend are just fine. The Mesa Tactical gear puts the SureFire 6P LED and spare ammo right where I need it.

We have a package that is slick feeding, with a crisp trigger, tight patterns and slug accuracy. Put that up in the Hardigg Storm Case iM3200 with the very secure “press and pull” latches (all six of them), the pair of double-layered soft-grip handles, pair of hasps, in-line wheels, Vortex Valve and flush-mounted hinges, and nothing will reach the gun to keep it from running the way it did when it left Grizzly Custom.
If you’re in the market for a fighting shotgun, or a fine lever rifle or carbine, a bolt gun, a Scout or a custom 1911, make your decision after you check in with Grizzly Custom.

For more info:
Grizzly Custom Guns, LLC
www.grizzlycustom.com
406-892-4570

Hardigg Cases
www.stormcase.com
Brownells
www.brownells.com

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