Brand new Remington 870 problems

[Allahdean]

I bought a Remington 870 super magnum for $320 at a Black Friday sale. I shot 50 rounds of Winchester super x ammo the next day and had problems. The first box I shot had brass/gold color shells and was 1290 velocity. I had no problems and it shot perfectly fine. When I started to shoot the other box which was a higher velocity shell, the shell would get stuck on the barrel of the gun. These shells were silver color and not brass color. I looked up the problem online and I read that I need to polish the chamber. I am going to polish the chamber to see if it does anything. But after shooting the 50 rounds I took the gun apart to clean it and I saw these huge chips in the chamber. I will attach an image so you can see it. But these 2 chips around the barrel are pretty deep. Should I contact Remington and get a new barrel? Or is this normal wear and tear? My last question is why can't I find my gun online? I google "Remington 870 super magnum" and all I see is the express version. My gun does not say express on it. It says "Remington 870 super magnum" did I get sold a fake 870 from sportsmans warehouse?

[Allahdean]

There's another picture of the chips

[Pastor Doogie]

I suspect you may have the express version-- if the finish has a gritty or powdery texture to it as opposed to glass-like smoothness you could see your face in, then it's probably an Express model.

I've got 2 870 express barrels in 20 gauge.

After looking at my barrel(s)--the barrel wear looks normal to me.

There's a great article on the site I used when I polished my chamber(s):
http://www.rem870.com/2012/10/14/reming ... polishing/

When I looked at the barrel wear in the article-- it seemed to have some wear in the same general areas as your new barrel.

It's too early to give up on this gun. I was surprised by how much a dremel tool w/ some rubbing compound from Home Depot or Lowe's improved feeding & extraction.

I've found that the more I shoot, the smoother this type of gun runs.

[Allahdean]

Well it doesn't say express on it but I think it is one. The reason I bought it was because I didn't think it was the express version. I thought it was higher quality so I decided to buy it. This gun is garbage if it's express. I would of spent the extra $200 for a real good quality shotgun that doesn't have jamming issues every shot

[Synchronizor]

Allahdean, this forum won't shrink images to fit the page. It will make your pictures easier to view and your posts far easier to read if you re-size and/or crop your images to keep them from stretching the page.


The "chips" on your barrel are normal wear marks that show up where the bolt contacts the barrel when the action is closed. Over many cycles, this contact wears the finish off, but deformation of the underlying metal is minimal unless you're talking about tens of thousands of rounds. Even at that point, the marks should not interfere with function. Below, you can see wear on my barrels in the same places. The marks are larger since I've put a ton of rounds through them (and two of them were used when I bought them), but they don't cause any problems.

chambers.JPG (62.77 KiB) Viewed 3747 times

As for the jamming issues, there are several things that can contribute to this. Did you clean your barrel before taking the gun shooting for the first time, as per the manual's instructions? Remington coats the chambers of 870 barrels with grease at the factory to protect them from corrosion during shipping, and if the grease isn't cleaned out, it can cause shells to stick after firing. Ammo quality also plays a part. You mentioned that the shells that were sticking had silver-colored cups. Low-quality steel-cup target shells have been known to jam in a variety of shotguns, because the more plastic steel expands due to the pressure of firing. The brass cups (solid brass, not brass-washed steel) used in high-quality hulls are more elastic, they shrink back down after the chamber pressure drops and are much easier to extract. Combine cheap steel-cup ammo with a chamber that hasn't been broken in and may not even have had its factory grease cleaned out, and it's not at all surprising that you had extraction issues.

Your 870 is an Express. It clearly has the matte Express finish, and Remington discontinued the Wingmaster-finished SuperMags awhile back, so any new SuperMag 870s these days are Expresses. It's not something I'd be too worried about, though. Mechanically, Expresses are the exact same guns as other 870s, they just have a different finish and more basic furniture. If you look through the forums here, you'll see that folks have also had cheap shells stick in brand-new Wingmasters and Police 870s. Any 870 needs to be broken in to be at its best, and prior to that, any 870 can have stiff extraction with the crappy cheap shells on the market today. Cleaning & polishing the chamber will help your 870 through this break-in process, but you really just need to get out there and shoot your gun. If a shell sticks, don't sweat it, just yank it out and keep going.