By Bob Boyd, Shooting Illustrated
ProMag Industries Archangel Remington 870 Tactical Shotgun System offers welcome ergonomic features, making one of America’s favorite scatterguns even better.
ProMag Industries furthers its efforts to blend the versatility of America’s favorite pump shotgun with the ergonomic enhancements of AR-platform rifles, in the latest addition of its Archangel line, the Remington 870 Tactical Shotgun System—an excellent means of tricking out your scattergun for home defense.
At the heart of the system is the company’s proprietary and battle-proven, mil-spec polymer, which is manufactured from a blend of glass and carbon fiber, for lightweight and robust dependability. Although it’s not ProMag’s first foray into the development of an AR-inspired shotgun stock, this variant interfaces wonderfully with the back of the receiver, without any noticeable drop at comb or aesthetic abnormalities. Its six-position telescoping buttstock is skeletonized and adjustable for length of pull. The shape of “buffer tube” portion of the stock offers the ergonomic benefit of an enhanced checkweld when using iron sights. There’s also a snap-on riser on the butt-stock for those who wish to run the gun with an optic.
In addition to a nicely textured rubber recoil pad, the stock also contains a replaceable spacer system, with replaceable elastomer pads of different densities enabling the shooter to “tune” the shotgun’s pad to a particular load’s power level—without suffering any long-term shoulder-tenderizing effects. While the benefits may not be suddenly apparent by running skeet loads during a leisurely afternoon at the range, the feature will prove invaluable the next time you find yourself dancing the scattergun samba during a tactical shotgun class.
For those who wish to run a weaponlight, the Archangel Remington 870 Tactical Shotgun System comes with a small tri-rail section that can be bolted onto the pump
However, that’s not the system’s only comfort-oriented feature. Unlike the pistol grips on typical shotguns that distribute an uncomfortable amount of recoil into the shooter’s hand, the pistol grip shape on this stock system is designed to disperse recoil over a greater area of the hand, enhancing comfort while reducing felt recoil.
Just above the pistol grip, a built-in pushbutton ball-lock quick-detatch bushing provides an ambidextrous mounting point for use with a sling. There is even a seven-round receiver-mounted shell carrier. While such a feature is quite common among shotgun tacticalia these days, I’m particularly fond of this version because it mounts in a manner that does not mar your firearm. Best of all, each slot contains an adjustment screw in order to customize the degree of shell retention.
Putting seven shells at your fingertips, the Archangel's shell carrier features individual screws to adjust each shell's tension.
Finally, the pump’s fore-end can be configured in original smooth fashion or fitted with an alloy tri-railed endcap in order to mount a variety of accessories such as laser-aiming devices and dedicated weaponlights.
No matter how you slice it, the Archangel Remington 870 Tactical Shotgun System offers ergonomic-based features that help make America’s favorite pump gun even better. And, for Mossberg fans, the Archangel system will soon be available for the Model 500 and 590 platforms.
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