Why the 870 Express hate?

My greatest disappointment with my '93 Express was the fake recoil pad. They would have been better off just skipping the pseudo-pad altogether.

Sure, it looked like a recoil pad, but it was really a little thin one-piece spacer that included a built-up hollow box rigid plastic thingy covered by a thin little piece of rubber. Worthless is what it was. Less than worthless really because the rigid box that gave the pad its depth wasn't as large as a metal butt plate or wooden butt plate would have been and didn't spread out the recoil. If I wasn't at the office I'd dig out the camera and the pad.

I hand sanded a Decelerator pad and fixed that issue quickly.

Why the 870 Express hate?

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I hate that I only have two.

The 870 express is a great value. I have noticed the rust problem as well as the extraction problem with really cheap shells, but they are hard to beat at their price point. I have seen much bigger problems firsthand with their biggest competitor, Mossberg. That being said, the Wingmaster is a nicer gun, and not just cosmetically. It is less prone to jamming and cycles more smoothly.

I bought my Express in 97' used for $75. I have had no issues with it since. Oiled on occasion and shoot a bunch. I've used every kind of ammo you can think of... So I'm happy with mine. ~Wingnut13

What hate?

My friend has a few 870s 1 mostly for a slug gun. He takes good care of it & it does just fine. He likes them even though he hardly ever gets a deer with it. He is not 1 to blame the gun he knows who`s or what`s fault it is he is not eating his deer instead of mine. Ok its not pretty & not stainless any will rust. Maybe they dont get the care that a higher price wepon gets cus some think they are beaters.

To all those that claim every Express to be a rustbucket

it's 20 years old,been out in many downpours, and has not seen oil in months.

BB, replace the old extractor when it no longer extracts, I guess. Never had to do one, but the most shells I put through any one 870 here was less than 25K. I have one showing less hook than most. It works 100%.

Maryland goose guides tend to be parsimonous. Some I know use Paraffin on their shotguns, including Expresses,melted in with hair dryers.. Turtle Wax and Johnson's Paste Wax are also used.

Well I got a free one 2 years ago that my best friend bought new.
He fired one shell and something fell out the bottom on the ground. I don't know what as I wasn't there.

He sent the gun to Remington and they fixed it, sort of..

It sat in his closet for 3 years during which time it rusted about 25% on mostly the barrel..

I got it and installed a left handed safety (they should be switchable)
Sanded and painted the barrel and action.
Then I stained the stock just because it was ugly.
The chamber required serious polishing due to the horrible machining.
I installed a new but pad because the stock one was hard as wood.

After all that it is finally acceptable as a beater truck gun to me.

bought one brand new in november....what a piece of junk!! extraction problems immediately out of the box, sent it back to remington and they "reamed and polished" the chamber and made it WORSE...took the gun back where i bought it, told them its been 6 months and im tired of having it fixed or sent out etc and they took it back on exchange....paid the 100 dollar difference and switched to a benelli nova...the nova kicks a bit harder than the 870, but it runs so much smoother! i wouldnt go back and i will never buy another remington firearm

http://s70.photobucket.com/albums/i82/SaleenSS90/?action=view&current=2011-02-26_18-13-51_98.mp4

check out my sweet 870

Amazing how many Express haters are Benelli guys. Well, I would not own a Benelli, so I guess fairs fair.

Dave McCracken said:

BB, replace the old extractor when it no longer extracts, I guess. Never had to do one, but the most shells I put through any one 870 here was less than 25K. I have one showing less hook than most. It works 100%.

Maryland goose guides tend to be parsimonous. Some I know use Paraffin on their shotguns, including Expresses,melted in with hair dryers.. Turtle Wax and Johnson's Paste Wax are also used.

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Similarly, I have had no functional or rust problems with the Express, or Express SuperMag. These are also the most often seen field guns here on the Gulf Coast. Indeed the Express and SuperMag Express are virtually the "uniform standard" for Dog Drives in the deer hunting clubs I have hunted with.

2112, a couple questions....

Did you follow the directions in the manual as to what to do before going to the range? The stuff on the bolt looks more like the preservative that needs to be removed than most lubes.

Did you try any ammo besides that Winchester steel based generics stuff? Many shotguns have trouble with those.

And did you try polishing the chamber with 4/0 steel wool in the well publicized and widespread fix for stick extraction?

Thanks....

I have had the Winchester Super Target stick in every gun I own... It ain't good for much besides being cheap.

Here's my experience with the three different 870s I've owned (all of them Express models) . . . To keep this short, the first two functioned perfectly. The third, which I bought about a year ago as a factory 6+1, has not been so reliable. It has had the aforementioned extraction problems in the past (solved once I broke it in) and shells routinely get stuck in the magazine tube and don't allow me to load it to full capacity. I switched the follower and spring out with the same parts out of my Benelli and the same thing happened. My Benelli didn't have any problems with the 870's spring and follower. I have aluminum followers in both. I don't have a problem with the 870 Express, I absolutely hate, hate, hate the factory extension on the other hand. My loading problems are not the fault of my spring or follower, it's the extension. I think it has to be the biggest POS factory part I've ever seen. I used a Tacstar on my first 870, Scattergun on the second and never had a problem. I'm going to replace this garbage extension on my 870 with a Choate 2 round because I hear they allow you to load 7+1 with the 18" setup. Can anyone confirm or deny this? My Benelli will load 7+1 with an 18" barrel and extension even with the muzzle so it is possible . . .

frozen - at the point that video was taken, the gun had already been shot and cleaned 3-4 separate times...that isnt any lube or preservative or whatever, i cleaned the gun with hoppes #9 solvent and oiled with RemOil

i cleaned the gun thoroughly before i ever shot it, followed everything to a t

i shot winchester AA, knokout, peters, remington, wincehster steel, winchester target, several slugs, a few high brass target loads (unsure of brand)...i shot everything i could get my hands on and it was all the same

i didnt polish the chamber - i sent the gun to remington and they reamed and polished it ....when i got it back from them the jam frequency went from 2/10 to 9/10....they made it much worse and i was done dealing with it....

also, i shouldnt have to polish or modify anything on a firearm that is brand new from the box...i cleaned it, lightly oiled it, and had problems from the start...i own other guns and i know how to clean them, and i knwo not to oil excessively, etc....i did everything right with that gun and it still failed

I bought a Benelli Nova when I was 19 and sold it a few years later once I realized that the 28" made it useless as a defensive weapon and I have no interest in bird hunting. Now I have a Benelli Nova Tactical with 18" barrel and LPA sights and I love it. The forend is attached to the action bars by a couple of allen screws rather than an actual forend tube like the 870 and it's a LOT heavier but I much prefer the Nova. I have nothing but trust in it to work every time whereas with the 870, I leave it home most of the time when I go shooting.

There's a Mesa Tactical 8 round sureshell on the other side that you can't see in this photo . . .

love it!!

wish i could pick up a tactical barrel for mine and a rifled barrel...but at $500 each ill just have to buy a couple more novas lol....i still dont understand how a replacement barrel costs more than a brand new gun of the same model, but whatever ....my 28" barrel does everything i "need" it to do...ill just get a rifled choke and keep my handgun for HD

Manufacturers are under tremendous pressure to keep their value lines below a certain price point. So they are constantly changing production methods to keep costs low.

Remington must have introduced a new, cheaper way of producing the matte finish used on Expresses. It had the unfortunate side effect of rusting instantly. However, not all of them have it. So there's no point in posting your rust free Express. It merely proves that once upon a time, Expresses didn't rust any more than any other gun. It doesn't mean that there aren't some out there merrily rusting away.

By the same token, a batch of Expresses were chambered with a rough cutter that produced a hard to extract chamber. I don't think they all do it.

I expect that the furor over the rusting is big enough that even Remington will eventually wake up and do something about it.

That pic was posted to dispute the claim that every Express was a rust bucket. I just provided photographic proof that is not always the case. I do know that manufacturers are constantly trying to lower the build costs of their products, and most of the time quality does suffer. Just look at Remington after Cereberus got their meathooks into them.

Times change. You constantly have new up and coming minds coming in to corporations who just know they have found the magic button to make everything better and cheaper, improve profits, and get a promotion. Too often they convince the bean counters their idea is sound and off they go and screw something up.
Look at Toyota. They went from the quality model for the world, making lots of money just off of tour groups to Toyota City (I know - I went), to the recall champions of the world in a fairly short time frame. Toyota got there by doing what the U.S. preached, but didn't do, then Ford rebounded by copying the good parts of what Toyota was doing, and Toyota fell off the merry go round reaching for another gold ring.
People didn't buy the Express for it elegant looks, so if it rusts why don't they quit bitching and paint the damned thing.

I dont know why anyone would buy one when you can get a used Wingmaster for less.

^+1 - I bought an older, used Wingmaster with a light contour vented rib fixed-modified barrel in decent shape (it needed to be cleaned and it really came to life) for all of $175.

I own a Wingmaster and an Express (Super Mag in Realtree HD). There's not just a difference but a big one at that, particularly in quality. My Wingmaster is incredibly smooth. Granted, it has about 1000 times more shells through it since the Super Mag is new. But the finish on my brother's Super Mag rusted after one three-day outing without being cleaned IN SOUTHERN ARIZONA IN THE LATE SUMMER. And I'm not talking about the monsoon season. That was over nearly a month previous. I wouldn't get one without it being wrapped in something else. The parkerized finishes seem like they need to be sprayed down with WD40 or Remoil on a regular basis. His action, after a about 1000 rounds, is still pretty, well, "crunchy". Maybe grease instead of oil is the trick?

I bought my super mag to have the ability to shoot heavier magnum loads. Given the choice I would pick my "2-3/4" only" Wingmaster and live with having to get closer to my targets.

bought one brand new in november....what a piece of junk!! extraction problems immediately out of the box, sent it back to remington and they "reamed and polished" the chamber and made it WORSE...took the gun back where i bought it, told them its been 6 months and im tired of having it fixed or sent out etc and they took it back on exchange....paid the 100 dollar difference and switched to a benelli nova...the nova kicks a bit harder than the 870, but it runs so much smoother! i wouldnt go back and i will never buy another remington firearm

http://s70.photobucket.com/albums/i8...8-13-51_98.mp4

check out my sweet 870

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Mine did the same thing with the same ammo. The real problem is that you bought a cheap gun AND you're shooting cheap ammo out of it. My Wingmaster has never had a problem digesting anything. This is a case of you get what you pay for and this time you tried to go cheap twice and got busted double dipping. My Express Super Mag has reliably fired and cycled every decent load I've put into it.

The Expresses are not Parkerized. Everyone almost seems to think a rough finish is Parkerizing, and it isn't. Parkerizing is a process whereby a phosphate compound is uniformly applied over steel, and this shields the steel and holds oil which also protects the steel. It is greenish dark gray in color - think M1 Garand. It is NOT rough.
Remington has Parkerized many Police Models and Special Purpose Models, and their prices reflect the difference.
An Express is a inexpensive tool. Like from Harbor Freight. A Wingmaster is a Craftsman or a Snap-On version. The rust handprints on cheap tools are not from moisture in the air, but the salt on hands. Some people's perspiration seems to have a lot more salt and who knows what in it than other people's, and lots of times their guns show it. That is not the only cause of the rust issue with Expresses, but it may be a contributor in some cases.
The Express is what it is. Some people hate them for that reason. Some people like them. But they are cheap and they surely do sell, and some people hate them for that, too.

Mine did the same thing with the same ammo. The real problem is that you bought a cheap gun AND you're shooting cheap ammo out of it. My Wingmaster has never had a problem digesting anything. This is a case of you get what you pay for and this time you tried to go cheap twice and got busted double dipping. My Express Super Mag has reliably fired and cycled every decent load I've put into it.

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i tried expensive ammo and cheap ammo both....all of it fired the same, i tried 5 or 6 brands, high brass, low brass, slugs, whatever....tried it all...it all ran the same.....youre comparing your wingmaster to the express and i think the real comparison is the age...your wingmaster is older and therefore its a better gun....im totally convinced that these new remingtons are junk because everybody is trying to make the cheapest products possible and QC is going out the window.... i mean, i sent my gun to remington to fix and they made it worse and sent it back...really? you would think they would have a range there that they could test fire weapons before sending them back to the customer....they took a every now and then jam problem and made it an every single shell jam problem....if they had run 5 shells through it they would have realized it wasnt fixed...and to me, thats bad QC and bad CS

i do agree though - you get what you pay for....i learned a valuable lesson with my 870, and im so glad i stepped up and got the nova....ive also learned to not chince out on my firearm purchases anymore in the future....my conceal carry weapon of choice is my trusty HK p2000sk, and my next range toy will also be a HK45...and if i ever find that i need to replace the nova with something, i will pony up the extra change and get a Fabarm imported....so the 870 was a learning experience if nothing else

I do believe that quality control is going out the window as well on a lot of firearms.
Just look at how many new pistols have to be sent back to the factory.
Last summer I was cruising the isles of a gun show and came across a private seller(my favorite) with an older Express 12 gauge.
After checking it out and seeing zero rust I bought it for $145.00.
I shot at least two full boxes of low brass Remington #8 and several rounds of different Buck.
No problems.
Sold it to a guy just before Christmas for $175.00.
I saw it this past Februrary and instantly could see light rust on it.
He does not own a safe and keeps it wrapped up in a beach towel and places it on a top shelf of a closet.
I am pretty sure the barrel code indicated it was made in 1993.
After seeing the rust I had to wonder if I had kept it if it would have happened to me as well.
Although all my guns are stored in a safe and twice a year all are pulled out and have a light oil wiping session.
I liked that Express and feel I really should have kept it.
I actually sold a Remington 700 I bought back in 2000 because of the same finish and it was a constant ordeal keeping the rust away.
I think my 1993 Express had the better finish of the two.
In the case of the Express perhaps buying older is better.