I'm wonder whats the best way to go about this, if I decide to go through with this. At a minimum the barrel needs to be threaded and the magtube can't be flush anymore, that seems unavoidable.
So I figure, if I am gonna cut, why not cut all the way to the front sight dovetail and get rid of that not quite 3/8 dovetail? Then thread the barrel and get a new proper dovetail. Following that, move the front barrel band behind the front sight like on this setup, that just looks more useful to me, so I can place the front sight as far forward as is possible, also looking for a sling mount like that:

Now moving the band backwards would require a new relief cut furher back for the bands retaining screw. I figure that screw and relief cut is enough to retain the mag tube? I don't think I need to make a new hole on the bottom of the barrel and instead I just file down the pin that retains the magtube cap like this:

I figure the barrel will end up at 19" or 18.5" after this cutting but I don't think that will make any real difference for ballistics, probably just handles a bit better, I'm also adding a williams peep (had one in my drawer for years, never got around to mounting it). Any comments / ideas on these mods?