There's a total of just over 10 million (10,000,000) 870s of various models (Wingmaster, Special Field, Trap/TB/TC, Special Purpose, Sportsman Pump, Police, Express, etc.) out there as we speak. I don't have any idea how many of those are Express guns - a few million though, I'd say, because a good many of those 10 million 870s were sold before the Express guns came along in, what, the late 1980s/early 1990s? Even so, I'd guess there are two or three million Expresses out there, maybe even more - I'm guessing, I don't really know.
As far as I know, the Express guns evolved out of the short-lived Sportsman 12 Pump (see
http://www.gunbroker.com/Auction/ViewItem.aspx?Item=226191350 for pictures of one, which example BTW I consider seriously overpriced). This seems to me to have been Remington's first effort at producing an economy shotgun (they did a similar version of the 1100 at the same time). The Sportsman pump was less polished externally and had very plain wood compared to the Wingmaster, and was priced accordingly. But it was still an 870 in every regard.
The same was true of the older Express guns. The only differences were in the finish and furniture. Express guns as a rule have birch or synthetic furniture as opposed to the bowling-pin finished walnut of the Wingmaster (some of the newest Express models have laminated wood), though our oldest Express here has very plain, straight grain, matte finish walnut furniture with impressed checkering. There were no internal differences at all as far as parts were concerned in these older Expresses - just finish. That finish was a matte blue, apparently produced by sandblasting then bluing the shotgun. That precluded the expensive hand polishing and high gloss bluing that made Wingmasters cost considerably more.
As things evolved, in a search for ever less expensive manufacturing processes for the Express guns, Remington began to use some less expensive parts in the Express guns, like the MIM extractor, and changed the design slightly to incorporate a one-piece plastic magazine spring retainer and magazine cap detent. This multifunction plastic piece is retained by two dimples pressed into the magazine tube, and these dimples preclude the use of magazine extensions. The barrels made for these Express guns lack the spring-loaded detent in the barrel ring that kept the magazine cap in place on older model Express guns.
These changes complicated things somewhat for 870 fans. Some people wanted to put magazine extensions on guns with dimples in the magazine tubes, and had to find various ways to get rid of the dimples. But getting rid of the dimples also did away with the magazine spring retainer/magazine cap detent, which could be problematical if the extension was removed and the gun restored to its original four-shot magazine condition - there was nothing to keep the magazine spring in place save the magazine cap, and the magazine cap tended to loosen without its detent mechanism in place unless some alternative (teflon tape, etc) was used.
Remington ships its guns with a heavy brown cosmoline-like preservative sprayed on inside and out, to keep them from rusting during storage and shipping till they are sold. Express guns are no different. The manual says to clean the new gun before use to remove this sticky preservative - but how many guys read and follow instructions? So lots of new Express guns got unboxed, assembled and shot immediately without the suggested cleaning, and with the sticky brown preservative still in place in the bore and chamber.
Result?
Sticky chambers and difficult extraction in some of those guns. Big surprise.
True, Remington's quality control was not what it should have been in some cases, and guns with rougher than normal chambers got released. Those too caused sticky extraction in some cases. But a good cleaning and a change in ammo fixed a lot of the sticky extraction problems caused by not removing the preservative. There were cases where chambers needed further attention, and some problems persisted even after attempts to remedy them. The folks afflicted with those problem Express guns sounded off, as indeed they had a right to do. How many of them were there really? I don't know. More than there should have been, I'll grant you that. Has this problem been addressed by Remington in newer Express guns? It seems so, it seems to me there are a lot less complaints of this nature now than there were a few years ago. But that's just an impression from the amount of time I spend here and on other boards, I have no statistics reliable or otherwise to back up my impression.
And that's about all I can offer on the subject. We have a buncha Express guns here, ten or a dozen in various gauges and configurations, and all of them bought used and cheap. We haven't had any mechanical problems with any of them, MIM parts and all. The only 'sticky' 870 barrel I've ever had was one that came off an 870 Police gun, supposedly the top of the line of 870s, and it only disliked Fiocchi shells - go figure. And when did I discover this fact? In a shotgun class, of course, after I violated all the known rules about taking untried ammo into a class setting. A Rolling Thunder drill will tell you a lot about how your shotgun runs when it's hot... .
And there's that rust thing. As I said, the factory preservative is brown, and when you wipe it off, it turns your cleaning rag brown too. Some folks seem to think that's rust. Yes, some Express guns seem not to have been rinsed well in the hot bluing process, and their bluing salts might not have been completely neutralized. Bluing is actually the aftermath of chemically induced rust, and if the chemicals keep working you get rust. Of the Express guns here, precisely one of them seemed to have had this problem. A thorough cleaning of all metal parts with hot soapy water and a re-lube with a good light oil scotched the problem. Subsequent applications of Johnson's paste floor wax have kept the problem at bay. It seems the rough blasted finish on Express guns might make them more vulnerable to rust, if they get wet and are unprotected by any preservative. But by the same token, that rough finish holds onto good preservatives pretty well - IF they are ever applied in the first place.
FWIW,
lpl
