For the money it delivers easily the most value thanks to it’s proven performance and basic features. The ability to customize the gun and the lower price point means you can make this gun yours very easily. The 7 round capacity (6+1) is more than enough with a trained shooter for most scenarios. It will digest any ammunition can shoot a 3″ magnum shell and has an 18″ barrel which makes it perfect for home defense and duty use. It’s the gun you pick if you can only have a single one. This is a testament to the 870’s history of reliability and durability. It can hold its own with just about all the others on this list too, even though it’s a basic, 7 round blued shotgun with no frills and costs just over $400 USD. The pump action can digest or reliably fix any malfunction caused by different loads, and the lethality of a 12 gauge is beyond question.Ī 12 gauge shotgun, and specifically a higher capacity pump action makes a lot of sense for a lot of scenarios.įor this list, we tried to be even more austere: we picked a substantially basic version of the Remington 870. You can defend a home better with a shotgun than with any pistol and arguably better than most rifles or carbines. You can shoot any game on the American continent within reason with some form of 12 gauge ammunition. A bold statement obviously, but with the Remington 870, this is not a huge stretch either. Notice we said “gun” and not specifically “shotgun”. The Remington 870 pump shotgun is probably the gun that best represents this concept over time. The ultimate tactical superiority is reliability and consistency. Referencing the brief concepts touched upon in the article introduction, this takes on the concept of reliability and functionality when it comes to the use of the word “tactical”. It’s the obvious choice for a majority of users who need a tactical shot gun. No list of the best shotguns, regardless of the slant to the article would be complete without a mention of the proven reliable, durable, and classic Remington 870 pump action shotgun. The Best Tactical Shotguns on the Market Remington – 870 Express We want to deep dive into the best options through the lens of different shotguns and how they achieve tactical superiority, and that should help you understand our choices and the way we lay out the overviews of each of these excellent tactical shotguns. Ultimately, it’s important to understand that it’s the concepts that make a tactical shotgun, not necessarily a brand name or a model number. Whatever it was, we feel confident that the below included shotguns are a very good representation of what is available and at the upper tier of the market available tactical shotguns. Sometimes it’s because the price was too high for a mainstream user sometimes the gun was amazingly innovative but ultimately unproven sometimes it was a simple technicality that kept the gun off of this list. The author’s favorite tactical shotgun is mentioned only briefly, and did not make the list because it’s a perfect fit for the author, not necessarily the general shooting population reading this. We have several guns we feel could have easily been included on this list that just barely missed being considered a top tier option for us. With thousands of available models and plenty of opinions, it will go without saying, some of you are not going to see your favorite tactical shotgun on the list. It is these two concepts regarding how a gun might be configured tactically, that we will use as a guideline for choosing the best tactical shotgun in this article. Instead of relying only on consistency and reliability to ensure a shot can be fired to mitigate a threat, the user can also rely on specialty equipment and concepts that allow additional functionality that may put distance between them and the target, or offer faster shots, more accurate shots etc. Secondarily, we believe that tactical superiority can also be achieved by allowing the user to customize the interaction, and given the proper training and experience, these add-ons could allow a user to be more tactical in their approach and achieve a level of superiority over a given aggressor. More finitely, it also includes things like basic accuracy and basic user friendliness too, though it could be argued that many modern takes on a tactical weapon system has unnecessarily complicated the base use of a firearm. That speaks directly to the consistency and reliability and durability of a shotgun. We took a look at this from the most simplistic angles.Īt its baseline the idea of “tactical” firearms has to do mostly with consistent performance that never leaves the user unable to make a decision that would secure their safety and defensive protection. How we choose those tactical shotguns is defined here. This is an article that gives an overview of the best tactical shotguns currently available on the market.

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