Turkey Time:
UTG Optic Mount &
Riton 3 Tactix PRD 3
A Match Made in Gobbler Heaven
It’s turkey hunting time, but Brent didn’t have a shotgun that was optic-ready.
Fortunately, the problem was easy to solve via the UTG Remington 870 optic mount
paired with a Riton Optics 3 Tactix PRD 3 red dot.
It always starts the same way — a perfectly reasonable idea morphs into an all-day project when reality suddenly rears its ugly head.
In this case, the idea was simple: I was going turkey hunting again. Not for the first time, but for the first time in about 20 years. That’s a long enough gap that your gear either disappears, becomes obsolete or starts looking like it belongs in a museum. Knowing I had unpleasant surprises in store, I started digging through what I had on hand.
First Things First
The first order of business was my shootin’ iron. Turkey hunting is a shotgun business, so I absolutely wanted a red dot optic on my scattergun.
It wasn’t a hard call. My eyes aren’t what they used to be. Turkeys have a nasty habit of moving at the exact wrong moment, and having a clean, bright, clear aiming point makes all kinds of sense at the start of legal shooting time, 30 minutes before sunrise. Sadly, I have to admit I’ve reached the stage where if I’m shooting with an optic of some type, I’m shooting better than ever. But with iron sights? “Attention: Mr. Magoo will be shooting today on Lane #10…”
Thanks to my career choice, I wasn’t exactly hurting for options as I’ve got a literal shelf full of optics sitting here. Some have been tested, some are waiting and there are a few I honestly forgot I owned. One of those was a Riton 3 Tactix PRD 3 Optic (MSRP: $329.99)
The 3 Tactix PRD 3 is a “full size” pistol optic with a wide field of view.
It might be considered a handgun red dot, but it works perfectly fine
on a turkey-hunting shotgun! Photo: Riton Optics
It’s technically a full-size pistol optic, which might sound like an odd choice for a shotgun until you actually look through it. It’s got a big window (24×17 mm) with a generous field of view, making it fast to pick up the adjustable dot, which is exactly what you want when a bird steps out, and your brain suddenly forgets how aiming works.
The 3 Tactix PRD 3 offers three possible aiming options — a 2 MOA dot, a 50 MOA circle and a combo dot and circle.
Brent likes the combo for getting on target when a tom comes in fast in low light.
It made enough sense I didn’t even overthink it — much anyway — though I knew that some people might look askance at a pistol optic on gauge. However, I love the idea of only adding 1.31 ounces to the kit I’ll be humping for literally miles through the woods while chasing amorous gobblers. The whole thing makes a lot of sense.
Purely by coincidence, a day later, I was talking to my old friend Trent Marsh, Riton’s director of marketing. As we chatted about optics, morel mushrooms, accurate rifles, fishing, optics and exasperating gallinaceous birds, he happened to mention he’d done the same thing on his turkey gun. It’s always comforting when someone else has already made your decision and lived to tell about it.
Something Missing
Everything was decided on the gun front, and I had already mentally focused on other gear as I headed toward the gun safe. As the heavy door creaked open, painful reality made a sudden appearance and sucker punched me right in the snout.
The entire set-up: UTG optic mount and the Riton 3 Tactix PRD 3.
I’ve got somewhere north of a dozen shotguns, which sounds impressive right up until you realize none of them were set up the way I needed. Sure, there are plenty of “tactical” guns with rails — but they felt about as appropriate for spring gobbler season as wearing a plate carrier to a church picnic. My actual hunting guns were closer to the mark, but none were optics-ready, and I had zero interest in drilling and tapping a receiver with the season less than three weeks out.
It’s moments like this when your most valuable piece of hunting equipment is your credit card.
After looking at options, I landed on the UTG MT-RM870 Picatinny Optics Mount for the Remington 870. It was under 40 bucks, showed up in two days, and yes, it came from Amazon. I don’t love that part, but I also don’t love missing turkey season, so here we are.
UTG is a brand of Leapers Inc., a manufacturer of optics and firearms accessories that started in 1992 in a garage in Michigan. I’d say they’re most known for their extensive lineup of quality AR-15 accessories that won’t cramp your checking account. Black AR goodies aside, I have to admit I didn’t realize the breadth of their product lineup until visiting their website. Honestly, their gear might not have the cachet of some boutique brands, but I’ve never found it to be lacking in any regard.
The mount is likewise stout and no-nonsense, carved from 6061-T6 aluminum and sports an anodized black finish. Against my camo turkey gun, I think the black can stay just as it is — unless I get bored before opening day and go after it with rattle cans of flat green and brown.
Installation was easy. Using a Real Avid punch set, the two action pins are removed (after removing the gun’s camo tape)
and replaced by long screws in the UTG kit. The only problem that arose was a momentary panic
when Brent didn’t realize the kit included two sizes of screws!
Installation was refreshingly straightforward. Drive out the trigger group pins, replace them with the supplied bolts, snug everything down and suddenly your plain-Jane 870 is wearing a Picatinny rail like it was born that way. No gunsmithing, no permanent modification, no stress. The same mount will also fit a magazine-fed Remington 870 DM.
Whenever mounting optics, it pays to use a torque wrench, like this one from Fix It Sticks.
It might seem like a luxury but it prevents those “Aw, darn it!” moments when you strip out
a tiny optics screw due to overly aggressive tightening.
If you were wondering, the Riton 3 Tactix PRD 3 natively uses an RMR footprint, but “Lord and behold,” as one of my former captains was fond of saying, there is a pic rail adapter right there in the PRD 3 box.
The UTG optic mount also includes an optional side saddle that holds four shells. It’s a nice touch, but for turkey hunting it feels a bit like installing an auxiliary fuel tank on a top-fuel dragster. If things go according to plan, you won’t need more than one shell, but if they don’t, four more ready shells probably won’t make things any better, so I left it off.
The final assembly. The Riton 3 Tactix PRD 3 sits solidly atop Brent’s Remington 870 receiver
using the UTG optics mount. Now, it’s time for patterning, then opening day!
It’s Go Time
At this point, everything is mounted, aligned, and looking the part. I haven’t fired a shot yet, which is always the moment where confidence meets reality, but first impressions are solid. The machining is clean, the fit is tight, and nothing about it feels like a $40 gamble. With one week to go, tomorrow is patterning day.
That’s when we find out if this was a smart, last-minute solution … or just another story about a guy with too much ambition and not enough foresight. One way or another, there’s a turkey involved, but the only question is — which one of us earns the title? It might be me, but I’m sure it won’t be the fault of Riton and UTG.
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