New Remington 870 Express failure to extact problem

[SiegeX]

So I just bought a Remington 870 express and took it out to Los Altos Rod & Gun on Friday for some manual trap. I bought a box of Winchester 8shot 100pk from Walmart and my friend brought with him some boxes of Federal 7.5shot (also from Walmart). Long story short, my 870 worked flawless with the Federal but I was having severe failure to extract problems with the Winchester shells. Doing a bit of googling I found out that quality control on the 870 express isn't the best and Remington is not honing and polishing the chambers like they should; causing cheaper ammo to swell and get stuck. I took off my barrel and looked down the breech and sure enough there is about a 1/2 section right at the end of the chamber that is so rough no light reflects off of it.

Taking the advice of a shotgun forum website, I bought myself a small brake cylinder hone and some 00 and 0000 steel wool. I ran the hone for about 30 seconds (with oil) on a drill. I then took a 12Ga bore brush and wrapped 00 steel wool on it and ran that for 5 minutes (with oil). I finished it off with another five minutes of 0000 steel wool. Unfortunately that dark spot is still very dark and I think I might have made things worse on the rest of the chamber as I can see swirl marks where I don't remember seeing them before.

I gave it my best shot but at this point I really do think I need a professional to hone & polish this barrel to a mirror finish so my 870 can take whatever shells I throw in it.

I live in Santa Clara/Milpitas and hoping there is a recommend gunsmith with shotgun experience around this area. Thanks for reading.

[akjunkie]

i had the same problem.

the dark spot sounds like the "cone". not the chamber per se.

hope this helps and please keep us posted on what your final solution to your problem was.

http://www.calguns.net/calgunforum/showthread.php?t=148359&highlight=akjunkie

[BMC]

One solution: stop using the winchester universals. What you experience happens to a lot of people, myself included when using those shells and particularly after the barrel has warmed up a bit. The shell casings seem to swell enough to put enough resistance against the chamber wall to make them difficult to expell.
The other solution as suggested and as you have done is to polish the chamber a little which can help.

FYI- those shells do the same thing in a lot of different guns.

[SiegeX]

i had the same problem.
the dark spot sounds like the "cone". not the chamber per se.

Thanks for that, this being my first shotgun I never heard of a forcing cone before. Apparently the dark spot is not due to roughness but due to the sharp angle of the forcing cone not allowing light to bounce off of it. Apparently there is a common mod to lengthen the forcing cone to reduce shot deformation. I'm really thinking on getting this done because this usually includes polishing the whole chamber which solves my initial problem as well

FYI- those shells do the same thing in a lot of different guns.

If it wasn't for the fact that my buddy brought with him a 100pk of Federal 7.5 shot I would have been SOL for the day. His Winchester 1300 would eat those Winchester value shells just fine so we switched ammo. I was thankful that we had a solution but kinda pissed that my new shotgun has a flaw if you know what I mean.

In the mean time I'm going to run the 0000 steel wool though the chamber a bit more, I don't think the 5min I gave it was enough. Then I'll take it to a local range and see if it will eat the el-cheapo Winchester ammo.

[BB63Squid]

As stated above I think this is a ammo issue. For the longest time I was shooting Federal with no issues. I switched to the Winchester and started seeing FTE issues.

[luckystrike]

my 1100 wouldnt even attempt to cycle winchesters universal.

[for2nato]

yea win universal = crap for a lot of people. saw this yesterday with a 870 tactical. just shoot federal if you want cheap ammo. same price for both at my walmart

[AndrewMendez]

An extra spray of Rem Oil inside the Chamber, might help out too! I shoot the Federal out of mine, and don't seem to have problems! However, I had a buddy bring that same Winchester stuff, and it was getting stuck. So i sprayed the inside with the Rem Oil, and didn't have any other issues!

[Nachoman]

I actually had the same problem yesterday with my Moss 500 using Federal shells from Wally world. Had about about 3 failures in 50 rounds, 2 of them I could get out by muscling the forearm, the last one I couldn't even move the forearm and I had to take it to the range gunsmith who took apart the gun to get it out.

This is a brand new Moss 500 though and I had installed a Knoxx specops stock on it, the gunsmith mentioned the mounting bolt might be too tight interfering with the trigger assembly, however seems odd that that bolt would cause the forearm to completely seize like that.

Based on the linked threads in this thread, I'm going to try polishing the barrel to see if that helps.

[BLD]

I've had the same thing happen with my 870 and the Win Universal shells. One thing I noticed is that when the fore end seizes up the fore end release tab gets stuck in the up position.

The other thing I found out was that my 870 only does this if I'm pulling the fore end toward me when I shoot. If I gently push on the fore end while shooting I have no problems. I just shot 50 shells yesterday during a trap shoot, and after one more session I will be buying the Federal shells for trap.

BTW if you want to get some funny looks take your 20" 8 shot security gun trap shooting. The locals give you the stink eye.

[shrap]

I actually had the same problem yesterday with my Moss 500 using Federal shells from Wally world. Had about about 3 failures in 50 rounds, 2 of them I could get out by muscling the forearm, the last one I couldn't even move the forearm and I had to take it to the range gunsmith who took apart the gun to get it out.

This is a brand new Moss 500 though and I had installed a Knoxx specops stock on it, the gunsmith mentioned the mounting bolt might be too tight interfering with the trigger assembly, however seems odd that that bolt would cause the forearm to completely seize like that.

Based on the linked threads in this thread, I'm going to try polishing the barrel to see if that helps.

The seizing up issue is similar to what happened when I installed a Knoxx Compstock on my Mossberg 500. Basically I forgot to put the washer on the bolt before tightening it down, so the bolt protruded into the internals of the shotgun and starting causing issues, eventually culminating in damage to the trigger assembly and ruining the stock.

Even though the Mossberg feels like it has a loose and sloppy action, there isn't a lot of space in the receiver for debris and such. Even small pieces will cause the shotgun to jam up.

You should check to make sure your stock bolt is not poking into your receiver. From the receiver's perspective, it shouldn't be intruding at all.

And Winchester Universals are misshapen or something. I had a few that were reluctant to chamber on my autoloader. Never using them again, after all the Federals and Remingtons are the same price.

[tba02]

I had the same issue w/ my Mossberg 500 this weekend. I picked up a 100 pack of Winchester at Walmart and really had to haul on the forearm to eject the shell. Initially I attributed to the fact that it was the first rounds ever fired in the gun. I'd left my supply of other mfg's at home so I can't be 100 percent sure, but snap cap's do not exhibit the same behavior.

[Nachoman]

The seizing up issue is similar to what happened when I installed a Knoxx Compstock on my Mossberg 500. Basically I forgot to put the washer on the bolt before tightening it down, so the bolt protruded into the internals of the shotgun and starting causing issues, eventually culminating in damage to the trigger assembly and ruining the stock.

Even though the Mossberg feels like it has a loose and sloppy action, there isn't a lot of space in the receiver for debris and such. Even small pieces will cause the shotgun to jam up.

You should check to make sure your stock bolt is not poking into your receiver. From the receiver's perspective, it shouldn't be intruding at all.

And Winchester Universals are misshapen or something. I had a few that were reluctant to chamber on my autoloader. Never using them again, after all the Federals and Remingtons are the same price.

Which washer are you referring to? The specops stock came with a little o-ring that you're supposed to take off, however I didn't see any washers included in the package. I'll definitely doublecheck to see if the bolt is intruding or not though.

[patrickm]

I had the same problem. Call Remington at (800)243-9700. They set me up with a local smith who took care of it for free in about ten minutes.

[cindynles]

Flex-Hone is your friend. I had the exact same problem and this did the trick (I also stopped using the wally world value packs). This works much, much better than steel wool. You need the chamber hone:

http://www.midwayusa.com/viewproduct/?productnumber=147884

Make sure you buy some of the honing oil too. It works by making a slurry from the hone and the oil, one bottle will last forever. I've polished all my 12ga and all my friends (13 or 14 total) and haven't even used 10% of the bottle:

http://www.midwayusa.com/viewproduct/?productnumber=661733