870 Express Troubles

cday

cday

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I bought a new 870 Express a while ago. I now have about 400 rounds through the tube. I never had a hitch with the first 300. I picked up a box of 100 the other day and shot a few clays. The first 40-50 were fine, after that I sometimes had trouble working the action. I would have to give it a real good yank back to open the action. Any thoughts on what may be causing this? As I said, everything was fine at first. It was cleaned regularly after every use.
 
I'd give the chamber a REALLY good scrubbing in case there's a build up of crud/powder residue/plastic making the hull more difficult to extract.
 
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You may even want to polish the chamber, may have rough spots causing the fired case to hang up, and as noted the chamber may be dirty, plastic build up. Now that I think about it (I post first, then think) if the chamber had rough spots, the hulls would have hung up from the start. Forget everything I said.
 
Clean the chamber and change your brand of shells, those walmart 100 packs vary a lot in quality, mostly poor and poorer!!!!!
 
Make sure one of the two action bars that are attached to the forearm are not jamming on anything in your receiver. They may not be completely lined up. Happened once to me with my 870 wingmaster but I believe the action is the same between the two of them.
 
I would break the gun down to it's major components then get an old tooth brush and scrub out all the crud building up on the action bars in the bar runways and in the receiver.I am guessing by cleaning it after each shoot you meant the barrell and maybe and maybe a rub with an oiled clothe. After every 200 rounds or so take the gun apart and clean it all out and I can bet it will run as smoothly as an 870 Express can.
 
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cday said:
I bought a new 870 Express a while ago. I now have about 400 rounds through the tube. I never had a hitch with the first 300. I picked up a box of 100 the other day and shot a few clays. The first 40-50 were fine, after that I sometimes had trouble working the action. I would have to give it a real good yank back to open the action. Any thoughts on what may be causing this? As I said, everything was fine at first. It was cleaned regularly after every use.
Click to expand...

When you say cleaned, do you mean completely disassembled including removing the trigger mech and bolt w/ carrier from the receiver? If not, then I suspect it is not clean enough, and you need to do this to clean it more thoroughly.....
 
I've seen that problem many times over the years on our range after alot of use which really heats them up. The gun is taken of range and disassembled and cleaned to put it back in action.
 
I take the gun apart every time I clean it. Yes I take out the trigger group, bolt etc.. I even pop out the mag spring and clean the mag tube. lol. Some of the guys I know think I'm a little crazy for cleaning my guns so much, they hardly touch theirs, even after a trip out in the salt water!!

I will try giving the chamber a good scrubbing for residue. I'm pretty sure there are no burr's etc in the chamber. I heard about that problem just after I bought it so I took a look at the chamber and it was as smooth as could be. As someone else said, there was zero problems with the first 300, so I doubt it's the problem now.

With regards to heat, the gun didn't get real hot. Yes the barrel was warm to the touch but that's all. There were only two of us there so we would take turns on the thrower. I'd shoot 5, then throw 5, it was probably only about 3 degrees at the time too.
 
Here is a very easy fix. (I have fixed alot of 870 Express models for myself and friends) Take a drill and fit a section of cleaning rod to it. On the end of the cleaning rod screw on a 12 gauge bore brush and wrap that with a layer of 000 steel wool. Then apply a coat of poishing compound (Flitz, auto sol etc) Do not use a grinding compound. Remove the barrel and polish the chamber for 3 to 5 minutes. When the chamber starts to feel warm it is likely good to go. Alot of express shotguns have good to poorly polished chambers.
Cheap shells will start problems immediately with a poor chamber, they take a little longer with a slightly better polished chamber. When you are finished your express will cycle ALL shells, cheap or else with no problems. Like it should.

cheers Darryl
 
I just got one and it has done that twice already and I have only put 70 rounds through it, but I admit I got the cheap walmart special
 
I like madtrapper's idea. I only have problems when I buy those crap shells from walmart, the ones with the aluminum "brass", they always require more force to extract, and a couple of times I completely ripped the rim with the extractor, and ended up having to remove the barrel and bang the spent shell out with a dowel, or cleaning rod.
 
I watched my nephew watch a flock of sharptails fly away while he tried to extract an aluminum based hull from his express. 10 minutes in the shop and he was good to go. Nothing better than watching your kin with both hands on the forearm with the air full of birds....

cheers Darryl
 
I had the same problem with my 870 express brand new out of the box, regardless of which shells I was using. As people above have been saying, look at the action bars....
 
I get the same thing with winchester's cheapo ammo. I just stick to the cheap remington game loads from BPs and never a problem, i tend to shoot a flat a month average, no problems.
 
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