Anyone know what these parts are?

[mu3las]

Hi,

I have a new Rem 870 Tactical and I disassembled and cleaned it for the first time today. I did not remove the trigger mechanism. This is my first shotgun, but I am familiar with filed stripping lots of handguns and AR15s.

When I reassembled the shotgun today, at the end I found an "extra" spring and part lying on my work bench. Can anyone tell me what this is? I dry fired the shotgun with snapcaps and everything seems to be functioning normal but I am just concerned I messed something up.

[gyro_cfi]

Hi,

I have a new Rem 870 Tactical and I disassembled and cleaned it for the first time today. I did not remove the trigger mechanism. This is my first shotgun, but I am familiar with filed stripping lots of handguns and AR15s.

When I reassembled the shotgun today, at the end I found an "extra" spring and part lying on my work bench. Can anyone tell me what this is? I dry fired the shotgun with snapcaps and everything seems to be functioning normal but I am just concerned I messed something up.

A picture please.

[mu3las]

Sorry, I tried to attach before but server had an error, hope it works now.

[Synchronizor]

I'm still not seeing any images. But just going off experience, might the parts look like these?

[mu3las]

Yes, exactly those parts. Sorry I keep trying to upload the photo and it keeps saying "error parsing server response"

So can you help me out Synchronizer?


Thanks

[Synchronizor]

I can't help with the image bugs, I don't do the technical web stuff here. It's a known issue and hopefully we'll get it sorted out, but until then, you can still post pictures by uploading images to a different website, and then inserting them in your posts with img tags.

As for the parts though, they are the magazine cap detent and magazine cap detent spring. If you look at the front of your barrel's guide ring, you'll see a little hole where those two parts used to be:



This spring-loaded detent engages dimples or slots on the undersides of magazine caps and magazine extensions to keep them from backing off under recoil. The spring & detent are inserted into that hole in the barrel guide ring, then the metal is staked to hold them in place. However, the staking doesn't always stand up long-term. It'll be enough for the detent to stay in place during inspections, assembly, and test-firing at the factory, but then once the gun is in the hands of an owner and starts seeing more rounds, the detent can work its way past the staking and fall out when the barrel is taken off. It's a hard thing to control at the manufacturing stage, and it's one of the reasons for the newer-style internal-ratchet cap retention system that most non-extended 870s now come with.

Anyway, you found both the spring and the detent, so it should be pretty straightforward for a gunsmith to stake them back into place in the barrel guide ring. You're perfectly fine to use your gun without the detent in the meantime, just keep an eye on your mag cap or extension when you're shooting, and tighten it back down if it starts coming loose.