Does the 870 Express jam?

O

owen35ny

Inactive
I bought one but haven;t fired it but I read a couple articles saying the new ones jam. Who has a new 870 express from say the last five years and who has or has not had problems? I can;t imagine that this is less relaible that the mossberg or winchester.
 
I have heard that some of them have rougher chambers which can cause extraction problems with some shells. Since you have already bought it, why don't you shoot it a bunch and tell us if they jam?
 
The only real jam I can think of is caused by slow cycling of the action, which can occur with any pump shotgun. There is no inherent jamming issue with the 870 Express.
 
I bought one a few years ago.

Every now and then one of the bars that controls when a shell is brought out of the magazine onto the ramp gets misaligned and it fails to release a shell but it's fairly easy to fix and isn't that big a deal.

I haven't had any problems with jamming though.
 
The Express shotguns of late have been reported by owners as being finicky with some ammunition, problems with rust, fired rounds sticking in chambers,that's all I recall.
But that is enough for me.
Remingtons quality has been slack as of late and it is not just their shotguns.
I have a friend who bought a Model 700 in 25-06 and the so called "cut checkering" was terrible and accuracy out of the box left alot to be desired.
I'm not trying to run Remington down as they seem to be doing a pretty good job of it themselves.
I've owned many Remington products over the years and will state that their earlier makes are excellent guns.
I just think that,like other companies as of late,they look for ways to max profit and it's always at the expense of quality.
 
I have a 870 tactical thats based on the express, as well as a express super mag and a 20 gauge youth express. Only problem i've ever had is loading shells into my tactical 870 when the mag tube extension is on. Sometimes I can't fit all the shells in there and need to take one out before I can load it properly. I think the spring may be getting caught up on the recess on the mag tube for the mag clamp. I replaced the factory follower but it still happens. Other than that I've never EVER had a problem with any of the three. The youth express is about 10 or 11 years old, the super mag is a couple years old and the tactical is about a year old.
 
Clean and polish the chamber it will do just fine. Mine will start to have problems after about 1000 rounds with a cleaning. So If use yours like I do. 500 rounds a week clean it.
 
A wad of steel wool on a dowel spun by an electric drill will ease your pains considerably. I do it as part of my annual cleaning. Polishing the chamber is very easy and takes only a couple of minutes.

I use 00 first, then 0000 for final polish. A pack of each size will last a long time. Polishing the complete interior of the barrel, it does a good job.
 
I had a supermag that would not extract fired 3.5" shells specifically Remington brand shells. The shell would be stuck so bad the extractor would pop over the rim and then pick up a new shell causing real probs. You would have to dig the old shell out with a screwdriver or something. I traded it off telling the new owner of the prob. Some of them will jam not all.

Evan
 
My neices husbands Express would rip right through the rim of the black hull Remington sport loads.After the steel wool trick it ejects them just fine.
 
I use to have two 870's, one was an express which would jam frequently with low brass shells. I had to the the butt agianst the ground hard before the bolt came loose. I was never able to fix it, so I sold them both.
 
Some shooters have different feelings about running steel wool up their chambers. I do it all the time. All it does is polish out the rough machining that Remington leaves in the chamber.

I like for my guns to work right or they are no good to me. I use the 00 and 0000 steel wool on the interior of the entire barrel at least once a year. It polishes out everything that doesn't need to be there, plastic fouling, rust, etc. Then I put on a thin coating of CLP Breakfree. By the way, don't use oil on the steel wool while polishing the chamber. You need the friction to get the metal particles out of the chamber that are keeping your hulls from extracting.
 
Yesterday while shooting I had my tactical 870 jam on me for the first time. It was somewhere near 300 rounds. I fired the first shell fine then ejected, and when trying to feed the second round, the front lip of the shell got caught on the edge of the barrel lip. A little shake of the forend and it fed well, and I didnt have any problems after that. With that said i'm unhappy and want to trade for an 870 police now. The gun was throughly cleaned recently and I was using remington 2 3/4in 8 shot target loads.
 
i have ran into the failure to eject on my newest 870. maybe 5 times in the last 1k rounds. enough to make me start looking for a new Hd gun.
 
Some of the new 870 police models have had rough chambers. They needed to be polished and they were fine. The express is only different in some parts in the receiver but not the barrel and chamber. I think Remington is having some QC problems in the last 2 years. Just my opinion
 
Brand new 870 express, cleaned it and ran a bore snake a couple of times through the barrel. Just shot 20 rounds of target load through it with no problems within 20 minutes or so. After reading this thread hope it stays that way as I got it for HD.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top