Remington 870 jams loading shells

[David LaPell]

I have a small issue with my 870. It's the early 80's version Wingmaster 12 gauge with a 2 3/4 inch chamber. It had the older style solid carrier. I swapped out the older one for a slotted carrier, the bolt, and the slide since this is going to be a defense gun. The bolt has a steel extractor. I noticed that when I cycle rounds, one will get hung up on the carrier. The carrier will lift the shell but it comes short of chambering the round. The round stops before the barrel meets the receiver so its not hanging up there. Also it seems sometimes as if the carrier is not coming up as much as it should and the bolt passes over the shell on the carrier. The shells extract just fine when shot or with dummy or live rounds. So far it does the same thing with Federal 2 3/4 inch 00 buckshot, Winchester 2 3/4 inch 00 buckshot, and a variety of dummy rounds. I did not replace any of the springs like the dog follower. Could that be it? The gun was thoroughly cleaned before hand so it shouldn't be dirty.

[Synchronizor]

I'm a little unclear what's happening. When you're trying to feed a shell, does the carrier not lift at all, and the bolt & slide hang up up on top of the shell? Or does the carrier lift the shell part-way, but not far enough to get it lined up with the chamber?

[David LaPell]

The shell carrier on occasion lifts part way with a shell and then stops just as its going into the chamber, and other times it seems to pass over the top of the shell. It does both things. Not every time mind you, it does both occasionally. I took it out today outside where I could point the gun in a safe direction and ran live shells through it several times, five at a time and sometimes it would do one malfunction and then the other. Sometimes it would run all five shells through flawlessly. It did it with both Winchester 2 3/4 00 and Federal 00. It would also do it with dummys. Again, not every time.

[Synchronizor]

Has this only started happening after you updated the action? If so, I would try swapping in your original components, one at a time, to see if one of your new parts is behind the problem. We had someone here a while back who was having problems with their shell carrier, and it turned out that they had the wrong type of slide assembly installed.

[David LaPell]

I swapped out the carrier dog follower for the 1100 carrier latch spring and that seems to have taken care of the problem. I got the replacement bolt and slide as the same parts from a Remington dealer and all the part numbers as listed and in diagrams were correct. Also identical to the ones in your video on Youtube going over the carriers. I cycled the same dummy rounds I used before and they ran through much smoother. Tomorrow I will take the gun outside where its safe and cycle some live rounds through it just to be sure but if they run through smooth as the dummies did compared to last time it should be ok.

I took the 870 out this afternoon (4/02) and took some Federal 00 buck 2 3/4 inch and Winchester 00 buck 2 3/4 inch and cycled both through the action. I had one hang up but that was quickly cleared and the rest fed through the magazine into the chamber and ejected flawlessly. I ran the rounds through a few times of loading and cycling from the mag and through. I didn't do any shooting just did a cycle test in a safe outdoor spot with the live ammo. They were the same rounds that were hanging up before changing the spring. I thought about changing that old carrier dog follower spring when I put in the new parts and I should have, but in the end it all worked out it seems. The old spring was no where near as stiff as that 1100 carrier latch spring and was a tad shorter. It was noticeable just putting the new one in and putting the carrier back on how much more effort it took versus when I first swapped out the old carrier for the new one but left the old spring in.

[Synchronizor]

Sounds like your old carrier dog follower spring was just completely trashed. I'd expect that replacing it with a new carrier dog follower spring (rather than an 1100 carrier latch spring) would also have fixed the problem.