[jrhines]

A S&W 1000 came into the shop with the chief complaint being that you could not load shells into the magazine. The follower was "glued" inplace. Indeed it was! When I dissasembled the gun I found what appeared to be "tar" in the mag tube, gobs of it. It turns out to be the remains of the piston shock absorber, after someone dumped solvent down the mag tube and dissolved the shock absorber, fired the gun a few times, thus coating the inside of the mag tube with this gooey, black mess. Well, what I need to know is what was this shock absorber made of and how thick was it? I know I can get one from Numrich, but I would like to make one of something a bit more solvent resistant. Can someone give me an idea of the thickness of this thing and how soft or firm the material is?

[Upriver]

I have a 20 GA model that had that same problem...
On the advice of a friend who had about half a dozen of them in his shop with the same problem, I thoroughly cleaned out all the gunk from the old buffer, and replaced it with a hard rubber garden-hose washer...
I've had it apart a few times since then for cleaning, and it seems to work just fine, however, it's not my primary shotty and doesn't see a lot of shells anymore.