Armory Sponsor
Posted: 1/6/2007 5:33:04 PM EDT
| I am debating which type of shotgun I want for my tactical platform, a Rem 870 or a Benelli Nova. I was talking to a co worker and he said he has heard a lot of people have feed problems with the 870. Is anyone familiar with this and if so can you please let me know what the problem is. Thanks! |
| Fired quite a few in the .mil and never had issues. My own personal 870 now fires everything but one batch of super cheap Winchester target stuff I got from Walmart. Seems the cases are out of spec and they won't extract once the gun gets hot. Everything else runs through the 870 with no issues. Federal "Vital Shok" buck is the way to go. Flight control wad makes the stuff pattern like you're shooting a long barrel with a choke. |
|
The only feed problems I have had with the 870 is when you short rack it It sometimes won't pick the shell up from the mag.(it was the shooter and not the gun) My son did this alot the last time we went out. You just have to learn to really pull back for a complete rack, and the problem go's away. |
|
Actually, tactical variants of the 870 can indeed suffer from feeding difficulties. The problem is a phenomenon called "shell surge", and is often encountered in 870 shotguns loaded with more than 3 shells (especially guns with mag extensions). When pumped very fast, with the shotgun still in recoil from the first shot, the next shell can jump forwards and get stuck behind one of the shell latches; as a result, it does not get released correctly, and the bolt gets closed on an empty chamber. The result is a "dead mans click"  .I had this happen with my 870HD 12ga. And before anyone suggests it, this was NOT a short cycling issue... I could routinely fire, pump the gun all the way back, then stop and look in to find no shell sitting on the lifter. The bolt was all the way back, and the next shell was stuck in front of the forward-most shell latch - no short stroking in my case. The root cause of this is, IMHO, a poorly designed shell latch configuration. Sometimes you can be lucky and minimize the occurence of shell surge by replacing the factory mag spring with an extra strength unit (either the one from the 870 Police, or a Wolff Extra Power spring). Even with a full length Wolff spring, my 870HD with +2 mag extension would still surge most every shot. In the end, I fixed it by modifying the action bars - this mod is kind of a PITA, but it has 100% solved the problem, and I can shoot VERY fast splits with this gun now. Many people will claim they have not had a problem like this. This may be true for them. The shell surge phenomenon is only encountered by people who habitually pump the gun fast under recoil, so anyone who is slower and waits to recover from recoil before pumping will never see this problem. Likewise for people who only load 2 or 3 shells in the gun... there is never enough mass in the shell stack to surge. HTH |
Sounds like you're the problem and not the 870!  Kidding with ya, I've not seen that happen before, interesting.
|
I had the same problem. I was under the impression an 870 would eat anything. I dont hunt. I bought it to shoot clays with a bunch of coworkers. 3rd shot and the gun wouldnt pump. I put the butt of the gun on a bench and yanked on the pump and it still wouldnt eject till the gun cooled off. Took it back for warranty and Remmington polished the barrel where the bolt locks into it. Then told me it was user error. That I wasnt holding the gun tight enough to my shoulder. Changed ammo after the polish job. No problems since, but it could be from the ammo change. I was shooting the Walmart white box stuff also. Sucks too because I have about 900 rounds of the stuff. |
Armory Sponsor