The best turkey choke for a Remington 870, starting with your barrel

How we picked

No one here has installed these tubes or shot a pattern with them. Each one is in Remington's own thread family, confirmed on the maker's fit chart, and each was scored against the choke rubric published in our First-Season Score: load compatibility 30%, constriction options 20%, thread fit coverage 20%, build and porting 15%, maker guidance 15%, all read from maker pages on 2026-09-22. New to the whole subject? The guns and loads hub starts one step earlier.

The 870 is the easiest gun in America to buy a choke for and one of the easiest to buy the wrong one for, because “Remington” is not a single thread. Sort that out first and the rest of this page is a short shopping trip.

Rem Choke or Pro Bore? A two-inch test

Take the flush tube that came with the gun out of the barrel and look at it. Carlson's sorts Remington shotguns by exactly that: Rem Choke tubes are about 2 in long with the threads at the bottom, and that family covers the 870, 887, 11-87, 1100 and V3. Pro Bore tubes are also about 2 in long but carry their threads at the top, and that family covers the 105CTi, G3, Versa Max, the newer 1100 Competition, Premier O/U models and — the one that catches 870 owners — the 870 Bone Collector.

So an 870 is not automatically a Rem Choke gun. Every tube ranked on this page is Rem Choke. If your flush tube has the threads at the top, you need the Pro Bore version of a line instead: Carlson's sells its Extended Turkey and Long Beard in Pro Bore, its TSS Turkey is not made in Pro Bore at all, and Indian Creek handles Pro Bore guns with a separate model (#0008), which its own interchange sheet notes is the Versa Max tube.

Gauge is the other half of the order. Remington built the 870 in 20 ga and .410 as well, and the tube changes with the barrel even though the thread family name does not. Carlson's sells its TSS Turkey for 20 ga Remington threads as item 38003 at 0.555 in, against 0.640 in for the 12 ga, and Indian Creek lists a separate 20 ga Remington model (#0012) in 0.555, 0.562 and 0.570 in. A .410 870 is a different problem again: Carlson's puts it under Remington Pro Bore and says it does not make that tube, which our guide to the .410 for turkeys works through.

The four tubes, side by side

Every figure links to the maker page it was read from. Constrictions here are exit diameters, not the amount of constriction, and a dash means the maker does not publish that number.

Why the Extended Turkey wins the 870

Five exit diameters in one thread — 0.640, 0.660, 0.670, 0.675 and 0.680 in — and a published chart that tells you which to buy. Carlson's Remington row reads 0.670 in (item 19584) for #4 shot, 0.660 in (item 19583) for #5 and #6, and 0.640 in (item 19585) for card and block shooters. That is the whole reason it finishes ahead of three tubes that are also well made: a first-time buyer gets a starting point instead of a guess, and a second size to move to if the first one patterns badly.

It is 17-4 heat-treated stainless with a matte blue finish, extends about 1 in past the muzzle with a 1.050 in parallel section, carries Carlson's lifetime warranty, and is rated for “Lead, Copper, Nickel, Bismuth, and Hevi-Shot.” The same line exists in Remington Pro Bore, which matters if the two-inch test above went the other way.

What it is not: ported, or rated for TSS. Carlson's sells a different tube for tungsten, and that is the next argument on this page.

Breaking a 7.4 tie: Indian Creek or Carlson's TSS?

Two tubes here score exactly 7.4, and they get there by opposite routes. The Indian Creek Black Diamond Strike #0002 gives Remington shooters three exit diameters — 0.660, 0.665 (its standard) and 0.670 in — behind 30 parallel ports, goes in and out by hand with no wrench, and comes with a published nine-step patterning process. What it does not come with is a load rating for tungsten: Indian Creek rates the Strike for “all lead and hybrid heavy loads with shot sizes from #2 through #10” and tells TSS shooters to check the shell maker's recommendations. It also publishes no material and no warranty length.

Carlson's TSS Turkey, item 38000, is the mirror image: one fixed 0.640 in exit, no ports, but 17-4 PH stainless, a lifetime warranty and a maker that names the load it was cut for, Federal Premium Heavyweight TSS, plus other makers' turkey ammunition in “Smaller shot size 7-9.”

We rank Indian Creek second for the hunter who has not bought shells yet, because two spare sizes are worth more to a beginner than a single fixed one. Jump to the Carlson's TSS tube the moment you decide on tungsten — a tube whose maker rates it for your shells beats one you have to ask a shell company about. Our TSS choke picks and TSS against lead, compared both go deeper on that choice.

The budget tube, and what you give up

Primos calls the Tight Wad “hard on turkey heads not your wallet,” and the Remington 12 ga version (SKU PS6771) is the least expensive way to turn a factory 870 into a turkey gun. It is one 0.660 in exit, CNC milled from chrome alloy steel rather than stainless, hand-tightened by a knurled end, and rated by Primos for lead, copper-plated lead and HEVI-Shot — not steel, and not TSS. Primos claims it spreads pellets “into a 30 inch circle at 40 yards,” carries a one-year warranty, and currently shows on its own store as a pre-order item.

At 6.2 it is the lowest score here, and the gap to the leader is mostly choice: one size, no chart, no lifetime warranty. If your first season is a lead-load season and money is tight, it is an honest tube. If you expect to shoot tungsten later, buying twice is the expensive route.

Two others fit an 870 that we do not rank: Carlson's Long Beard in Remington thread (item 70120, 0.660 in), built specifically around Winchester's Long Beard lead loads and one of the picks on our best turkey chokes roundup; and the JEBS Head Hunter, whose Remington option JEBS lists for the 870, 11-87 and V3 but which publishes no load rating. Kick's builds its Gobblin' Thunder in a Remington-thread 12 ga too.

Which shells to buy for the pattern board

We cannot sell you shotgun shells — Amazon does not sell ammunition, so nothing on this page is a shell recommendation with a buy button behind it — but you cannot choose a tube without deciding what goes through it. Two names cover most first-season 870 shopping lists.

Winchester Long Beard XR is copper-plated lead with Winchester's Shot-Lok resin, sold in #4, #5 and #6 in 12 ga. Winchester claims “twice the number of pellets in a 10-inch circle out to 60 yards compared to traditional lead turkey loads.” It is the load Carlson's Long Beard tube was cut for, and it suits every lead-rated tube on this page.

Federal Premium HEAVYWEIGHT TSS is the tungsten option, and Federal states the density plainly: 18 g/cc, which “allows the use of smaller shot for more than 800 pellets in certain payloads.” That is the load Carlson's TSS Turkey is built around. It is expensive shooting, and it is also the reason a 0.640 in tube exists.

Buy two or three boxes across shot sizes rather than a case of one, because the whole point of the exercise is to find which combination your barrel likes. What size shot for turkey breaks the choice down by gauge, and your state's rules may rule some sizes out before you start.

Where the pattern lands, not just how tight it is

A new choke can move your point of impact. Indian Creek says so outright — “It is very likely possible that your new choke tube will change your point of impact” — and the NWTF's patterning advice is to shoot at 20, 30 and 40 yards, then “adjust your sights if the center of the pattern's mass is off.” A bare bead gives you nothing to adjust, which is one reason turkey hunters add a red dot or a fiber-optic front sight; Indian Creek says its turkey tubes do their best work with an optic on the gun.

The other half of the job is where you point it. Pennsylvania's hunter safety course states that shotgun hunters get “greater success… when hunters shoot at the head and neck area of the bird,” because feathers and heavy wing bones can keep shot out of the vitals on a body shot. Read where to aim on a turkey before opening morning, and the tightest tube on this page becomes a lot more useful.

Buyer's guide: a first turkey tube for an 870

A turkey choke does one job: squeeze the pattern down so enough pellets land in the 10 in circle around a gobbler's head and neck. The NWTF describes that target as roughly 4 square inches of head and spine, and the long-standing standard, repeated by Mississippi State University Extension, is 100 pellet holes in a 10 in circle at 40 yards. A factory modified tube will not do that. Any of these four can, with the right shell.

Work through it in this order:

1. Thread. Flush tube 2 in long with threads at the bottom means Rem Choke, and everything on this page fits. Threads at the top means Pro Bore, and you need that version instead.
2. Shot type. Lead or HEVI-Shot: Carlson's Extended Turkey, Indian Creek Strike or the Primos Tight Wad. TSS: Carlson's TSS Turkey.
3. Size. Start on the maker's chart, not on the smallest number. Carlson's says its chart is “a starting point; there are exceptions for every shotgun and load.”
4. Paper. Buy two or three different shells and shoot them. Indian Creek warns that a new tube is likely to shift your point of impact, so this is not optional. Our patterning walkthrough has the routine, and the choke reference table shows how constriction works across gauges.

Do not let a maker's yardage claim set your shot distance. Missouri's conservation department, writing for new turkey hunters, says “shooting at a turkey at more than 40 yards is not recommended, regardless of which gauge shotgun is used.” Your own pattern board is the only honest authority on how far you can shoot.