870s are made to work with authority. Reliability is the primary award winning part of owning one. I have many, my 5 Son's and Wife all have at least one. Speaking with thousands of rounds of experience, some, depending on the hull being used, or the break in possibly needed, may need a little more forward and or reward authority to cycle fully. I find this more typical with high based shells, but have had an occasional AA or other standard shell do it. The shell holder on a new one is angled out a bit more than on a good broken in one. An example of this would be to rack the action all the way back, or open as it were, completely until it stops. Now as gently as possible, with the barrel facing straight up, try to pick the shotgun up by the forend stock without causing the action to slide closed. If you can't pick it up without the action closing, then it's just in need of lots of break in. I sped the break in up in two diferent ways. I either keep the barrel clean, but don't clean the action as it help to smooth out the contact surfaces, rails, shell holders, and reciever surfaces. You can either do it this way or you can hand lap all the contact surfaces. l can assure you nothing is wrong with your 870. They are so reliably simplistic my Son's at the age of 8 or so would have on going contests with one another to see who could completely break one down and reassemble it blind folded in the shortest amount of time. I think the last record was under 2 minutes and a few sliced fingers on the broken in reciever rail slots. If the inside of the reciever isn't razor blade sharp it isn't yet broken in all the way. My 870s range in age from 40 years old to a couple years old and none have ever broken or had any problems. We shoot everything out of them, and like I said, the high base shells are more prone to requiring a good authority handling. Don't worry about hurting them, just man handle it as hard as it takes to completely open and close it. as if you are angry with it. I would say treat it like you hate it, but that just wouldn't be the right thing to say about the most durable, reliable, and finest all around shotgun ever manufactured. My last comment on this, slam and bam!
