Regarding 870 Magazine Springs & Followers

[Bobby Ricigliano]

I bought a couple of traded in LE shotguns in great condition and they shoot great as is. However, I decided to swap out the factory orange plastic follower and factory magazine spring for an aluminum follower and Wolff spring.

The tube (70's era 4 round capacity) does not appear to have any dimples, but the factory follower did have the cutouts for dimples, so I replaced it with a red aluminum follower that also had the cutouts.

Here's the weird part: The factory magazine spring was actually about 4" longer than the aftermarket spring. Is that normal? It function checks fine with either spring so it was more of a piece of mind upgrade.

Can a shorter spring be stronger than the longer factory one? The finger tension when pressing on it feels about the same......

[m16]

Police Magnums have a longer magazine spring.

[Bobby Ricigliano]

Police Magnums have a longer magazine spring.

That makes sense to me. These shotguns are not 870P's though, just Wingmasters with short barrels.

[m16]

Someone could have replaced them.

The Wingmaster might even come with the same spring as the PM, I've never compared mine but now I'm going to.

[003]

Keep in mind that Police Departments do service and maintain their firearms. It could be that your gun was serviced prior to it being traded in. The day it was pulled from service, it was still in "field ready" condition. No reason to believe that the springs that came with it were not 100% serviceable.

[Artema]

That makes sense to me. These shotguns are not 870P's though, just Wingmasters with short barrels.

The strength of the spring under pressure is what matters. Older technology just said to increase the length to increase the pressure, but modern springs can do the same with different material, thickness, and tension ratings.

[Bobby Ricigliano]

Thank you all for chiming in on this. Yes, I am sure they did maintain this shotgun as it is in excellent condition. I just sought clarification because I repurposed these shotguns as upstairs and downstairs HD weapons and of course I want to make sure they worked. I test fired both and they were 100%
out of the box, but the plastic followers looked worn out so I wanted to update that.

As an added bonus, one of the shotguns is magnaported so the Mrs. took that one for her HD weapon. With low recoil buck and a nice fat recoil pad it is a pleasure to shoot.