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Shortened the turkey barrel on my 930

MikeD

I'm Your Huckleberry
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I've been wanting to shortem my turkey barrel on the 930 since I got it and finally went for it.

The barrel was 24" and I took off about 4". I cut the VR right at the lug and cut the barrel at the rear of the porting.

I then reamed and threaded it so I could reinstall the turkey choke.

My motivation for this is the fact that most turkey chokes extend 1.5 -2" which effectively makes a 24" barrel a 26" barrel. I would have only taken 2" off it but opted to remove all of the porting.

2019-05-27 20.19.58.jpg

There is a small portion of rib missing on the removed section. I cut the barrel about 1/8" forward of where I cut the VR.

I didn't get a perfectly square cut but the choke tube reamer squared it up after the fact.

I am now missing my front sight. One of the screws on the firesight broke when I loosened it to move the sight. It came to me on another used gun so it may have been stressed from a few installations.

Overall it took me about an hour and a half to complete everything
 
So you can shorten the barrel on one of these without hurting it's ability to cycle rounds? Take care. Tom Worthington
 
So you can shorten the barrel on one of these without hurting it's ability to cycle rounds? Take care. Tom Worthington
That remains to be seen but I am not to worried about it.

I am using the OR3GUN parts on the receiver which will help. Also this setup will rarely see anything but 3" magnum turkey rounds.

By adjusting the recoil spring I am able to shoot light loads out of my 18.5" security barrel with no issues so I doubt this one will cause me any problems if I ever repurpose this barrel for something other than turkey.
 
I would run some really light handicap loads for giggles. The gas porting may surprise you in what it'll cycle. If it doesn't, it doesn't, but only one way to know for sure.

If it does, would also make a heckuva small game shotgun.

My youngest son has shot more than a case of shells through the emporer arms semi with the full and extra full turkey choke and has put a few squirrels down the first season he used it. I think this year he's going to use nitro/#8's (1300 fps) to bump the velocity up a little better while keeping the 8 shot because they pattern so well.

You did a really good job shortening the barrel and threading it with your reamer and choke tube tap. That's the hardest part of the project I'm sure. Or, at least the most time consuming part. Easily 40 minutes keeping the tube lubed and cool and cleaning chips out of there.

You can always get a 6-48 tap and drill set on ebay cheap, and a fat bead sight to fit too. Probably wouldn't cost $10 or $12 altogether. Putting a bead on the vent rib should be straight forward. Especially if the VR has witness lines going down the rib. Just find the center groove and use a center punch to mark it and so the drill bit won't walk.

Not exactly a vent rib in the picture below and was when I was installing a rail on the CD semiauto receiver, but what I was trying to explain about finding the center if it has grooves

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I think the Mossberg may use a 5-40 thread for the factory bead though if you're wanting to go back to that. But I like the fat 6-48's better. More robust shank and less likely to break off flush with the top of the barrel if you bump into something with it.

Trust me, if you can thread the barrel for a choke, you can thread it for a little bead sight.
 
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