[[FH]K96]

I went to the range today with my friend who just picked up an 870 express 6+1 shotgun. he has several failures of the extractor I believe- he had to bang the butt of the while working the slide to eject the spent shell. The range master sprayed some oil into the breech, but the issue persisted. But, when I used the gun I did not experience the failure. I am leading to believe that he is short stroking the slide. He does not experience the problem on my 590A1.

All in all it was still a good time plinking and trap shooting with 500+ rounds :)

Any suggestions what the issue of his new shotgun is?

[Dave McCracken]

Sounds like Pilot Error.....

[Fred Fuller]

Could be as simple as a good cleaning.

New Remingtons come from the factory with a coat of sticky preservative to keep them protected while in shipping/storage prior to sale. The owners manual gives instructions for fieldstripping the gun, it should be sprayed down with a good degreasing cleaner (ESPECIALLY the chamber) and wiped down. The chamber and bore should be brushed and patched out well. Clean the inside of the magazine tube too while you're at it.

If you have functioning problems with a thoroughly clean and properly lubricated 870, chances are you need to try a new brand of ammo. Some of the 'bulk packs' in different brands don't seem to run well from time to time. Letting a different shooter handle the gun was a really good idea- some problems are operator malfunction and that's the best way to find out.

Hope he gets it sorted out, but it sounds to me as if the Operator Headspace and Timing needs an adjustment in this case...

lpl/nc

[[FH]K96]

Thank you for the advice Lee. I will help him field strip the shotgun and show him how to clean it. BTW, we used only Federal Game Shock (7.5 if I recall).

Thanks

[rich636]

If it's brand new then I think Lee is exactly right. I took my new 870 out without cleaning the coating out and had ejection problems as well. It takes some real good cleaning to get the film off the inside of the chamber and barrel.

[bigpea]

I have a 870 3 months old and never had a problem until I bought a case of Winchester Super Target 7.5 shot. I really had to force some of the shells out after firing and it became a more frequent occurrence after I fired more rounds, probably 300 total that day. I haven't shot it since and was hoping it wasn't anything to do with the 870 itself.

Also I was told that cleaning the gun everytime after shooting it is not necessary. I clean all of my handguns right away.

Any thoughts?

[Regolith]

bigpea....its a good idea to clean the bore out after every trip to the range, but a full strip and clean usually isn't necessary. I think most recommend doing that every 1000 or so rounds for shotguns.

However, that also depends on what type of ammo your shooting. If your shooting certain military surplus ammunition its usually a good idea to completely clean the gun after every trip to the range, because that ammunition can be corrosive.

However, I think your problem was with the winchester rounds. Winchester bulk packs are absolute crap. They don't seem to be made to spec and so will have problems that most other brands don't have, including Winchester's more expensive ammunition.

[Milkmaster]

Look for plastic buildup in the chamber. I have read more than one article lately where some plastic hulls leave some plastic on the chamber surface if you shoot the barrel enough to get the barrel hot like in trap. The plastic reportedly gets sticky causing eject failures. The article said most people seem to get the bores clean but not the actual chamber where the hull sits. It did cause me to take a look at mine even though I wasn't having problems, and that was the purpose of me writing this. Take it for what it is worth. If it applies and works for you, then all is good. I hope you get yours running smoothly.

[bigpea]

Regolith...thanks for the information. I bought the ammo at Walmart for $35 for the case and thought it was too good to be true. I know the directions to field strip the 870 are in the manual but I have never done it before. Is it something that is relatively easy to do? I am a wiz with most handguns but this is my first Shotgun. Thanks for the insight and help.

Milkman...thanks for the heads up, i'll check this weekend when I go out and see if anything is building up.

Thanks again!

[Regolith]

bigpea: stripping the 870 down to its parts is actually extremely easy. Just follow the instructions in the manual and it takes all of 10 minutes, if your slow.

[bigpea]

Sweet, thanks. I just looked at the manual and this will be easy. Thanks for everyones help!

bigPEA

[rino451]

I and others have had the same issue and posted posted here before about it.

The symptoms:
I have a Mossy barrel on my 870 that has a sleeve insert. After it heats up it'll hang onto the shell so bad I can rip the extractor through the rim. Let it cool for a minute or two and the shell will drop right out. This happens with win, Rem, Federal, and and two others that I tried. I tried polishing the first 1" of chamber to see whether it'll help.

The solution:
Managed to get out to the range on Saturday to wring out the 870 again. Looks like it's "fixed" for now. My solution was to take a brush, wrap it in steelwool and then add jeweler's rouge and go to town on the rearmost 1" or so of the chamber with it chucked in a hand drill. To be honest I could not really tell the difference by eye and I'd be lying if I said that I could feel any difference in the chamber. Anyway, I ran 870 on the cheap Winchester Walmart stuff until the barrel was way beyond too hot to touch and never had a bind of any sort. BTW just so I could rule out anything else, I didn't clean clean it since the last time I had issues with it.

[Gunsmoker]

Short stroking the slide won't cause the shell to get stuck in the chamber. Even if it gets short stroked, the next full stroke should extract the shell.

You could try different types of ammo. The best ones would be the shells with a minimum amount of metal rim. This metal appears to expand and get stuck inside of the chamber. Much like a revolver. If you shoot enough .38 special rounds in a .357, the .357 shells will not extract cleanly after some time.

Take a look at these two shells. The second picture would be better than the first one. Try it out and report back.


http://www.northwestloading.com/catalog/images/Remington%2012%20ga%2000%2025%20rds.jpg

http://www.prestoimages.net/graphics03/13627_pd280737.bmp

[MCgunner]

I have bad failures of the extractor kind with old, rusty ammo in my Mossy. So long as the ammo is fresh, it's fine. Could be an extractor problem on the 870, agree that short stroking won't cause the round to stick in the chamber. It could fail to eject, but not extract.

[[FH]K96]

Thanks to Lee's and everyone else's advice. We cleaned his barrel up and went to the range again yesterday to shoot some clays. Around ~300 rounds of the same Federal Game Shock 7.5. He only experienced this issue maybe 2 times instead of over 30 last time. When we get the chance we will remove his barrel and do a more thorough cleaning. Anyhow, another good time at the range with godd friends :)

A pic of his 870 (top) and ammo used.

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b278/K96/IMG_5253.jpg

[bigpea]

I also made it to the range on Sunday and before I went I actually field stripped the 870 and cleaned out the trigger assembly. I'm glad I took it fully apart; it was pretty junked up and sticky. I started with Federal Power-Shok and didn't have any ejector problem. I then switched to the Winchester 7.5 I was using before and getting jammed and nothing!! No jams what so ever. There were a few times it was a little harder to slide back and eject but nothing like it was before. I put probably 125 rounds through it yesterday and got it nice and hot, no problems. I did field strip it fully and clean it well since I think that all of the gunk in there might have attributed to the ejector not working properly? Or maybe just some crap boxes of ammo? Either way I’m not going to worry about it because with the Federal 00 Buck it feels smooth as ever and that’s what I keep in it all the time. :)

bigPEA