870 Jamming

[trg42wraglefragle]

Hi,
I have a one year old Remington 870.
I hardly ever have any problems with it apart from it kinda jams every now and then.
By kinda jamming, The pump is really hard to rack and I usually have to hit the butt on the ground while holding the slide to rack it.
It only ever happens every now and then, its done it with a few different types of ammo to. Ive never had it malfunction in any other way, I always pull the slide right back when reloading.

What could be causing my problem?

Thanks Sam

[rudeboy3]

This is a common issue with 870s and mine did the same thing. Take a handheld drill, get a wooden dowel that fits the drill, get 00 steel wool, tape about half a pad of steel wool to the dowel, next put the dowel in the drill and polish the chamber in the 870 barrel for a few minutes until the barrel gets warm, now this next part is important.....go out and shoot the hell out of it

[M.O.A.]

try cleaning it and not just the out side take it apart and clean it real good

[trg42wraglefragle]

I have pulled it apart and cleaned it after every use, ul'd be doing well to find a better looked after a gun.

[jmortimer]

There are many 870 jams threads out there. Usually fit and finish issue as design is more than sound. I would look it over for rough spots and smooth them out - not just the chamber. You could contact Remington and see if they will fix it as you should not have to clean up their lack of fit and finish. At some point it should break-in and work real good.

[TheKlawMan]

I second the dowel and steel wool polishing. JD at http://www.aiptactical.com/Page_2.html has turned many on to that and has instructions on how to do it on his web site. I believe he recommends a 7/16" dowel for the chamber. It is the first section of his install and cleaning page.

This is a very common problem on new 870 express models. I didn't encounter it on mine, but I polished it out of the box. However, it jammed the 12th shot when I first tried a used barrel that I didn't polish.

I believe that if you don't polish the chamber, the problem goes away with putting enough rounds through it, which does not necessarily translate to being a year old. You can probably ssend it to Remington if you wish, but I would avoid the hassle and polish it myself. If that doesn't do it, I would be on the horn to Remington.

[M.O.A.]

from what i hear calling rem. wont do much good the sandpaper and dowel sounds like the ticket

[Slopemeno]

Make sure you're pushing the rounds fully into the magazine. If you don't, the rounds can pop out from behind the shell stops when the gun recoils and tie up the gun, giving the symptoms you're experiencing.

[Recoiljunky]

I always used 000 on a cleaning brush to polish chambers and don't use sandpaper you could remove to much and make it out of round

added: 000 steelwool that is

[pmulls870]

newer 870's use tighter tolerances than the older ones did (hence why everyone wants the older ones). What I found with my 870 was there was finish stuck in the movable parts that needed to be cleaned out. Rip that bad boy apart and polish every single moving part in that thing.

[jmortimer]

Don't know about tighter tolerances but I would do exactly what you suggest with an Express grade - smooth it all out.

[sirsloop]

My 26" barrel would so the same thing. Its due to a burr or the barrel being slightly too small. A friend of mine honed it out with a drill and actual 12 gauge specific tool (not 00 steel wool) and now it racks and shoots excellent.

[Deja vu]

when i first got my 870 is would jam up like yours, being a teenager at the time I later bought a "cool" 18 inch tactical barrel... for some reason it functions perfect with the after market barrel but not the stock barrel, I don't know if that is your problem or not.

[TheKlawMan]

Deja vu; I wonder if the specs are just slightly different on the 18" (they are actually 18.5" if you measure internally to the closed bolt) than on many of the other barrels. My new 18 never has jammed in about 200 rounds but a used 18, with I don't know how many rounds through it before I got it, jammed once out of the first box I put through it. The chamber of the 18 had been polished with steel wool out of the box, but I didn't do the chamber on the 28.

[Conservativegirl]

From what I have read on this forum, other forums, and youtube, jamming is a very common problem for the 870 express. My daughter shoots trap and I did a tremendous amount of research before we bought her a gun. She wanted an 870 because she had been borrowing an older version of one. After reading a lot of information we bought an 870 Wingmaster and let me tell you the action is like butter. She hasn't had one jam, but the difference is that it was double the 870 express' price. Well worth it though in our opinion. It's too bad that Remington won't resolve the problem with express. They are giving themselves a bad name.

As an aside, I think this forum is great, and I really appreciate all of the information here.

[alabama]

It seems like remington would have fixed this problem by now. I bought a new 870 express 6 years ago almost every shot jammed. It broke in after about 300 rounds but now i dont trust the company anymore. Its a very well known problem and they wont do anything to fix it. What does that say about there company? When its broke in ur gun will shoot fine. It sucks people buy a new gun and have to go through this. Oh and by the way my brother just bought a box of rem .45 acp 3 out of 50 cartriges where bent sideways. I dont even know how that was possible,looked like somebody hit them with a hammer. I had a remington 742 .30-06 several years back.When fired the shell would get stuck in the chamber and the rim ripped off. I would have to put a cleaning rod down the barrel to beat the shell out. Maby i am one of the few people thats had problems with remington but they want get my money anymore.

[seansean1444]

fire some big a$$ heavy loads threw it and break it in good

[publius]

the only time I've seen it happen is when the chamber has been allowed to rust. i'm not accusing you of neglect, it can happen really fast, especially in a duck gun where you're putting damp shells in the gun sometime. You have to clean the bore right after each hunt. i don't have a lot of experience with the newer guns but have heard the quality has gone down. I like the steel wool/emery paper idea.