870P - My firing pin snapped in half.

[Chief Brody]

Yesterday, I took one or two shots in the first stage of a shotgun match and then... no more boom. I could see the firing pin sliding out of the front of the bolt. I quickly determined... that ain't good. Just now, I've removed the bolt from the gun and can plainly see that the firing pin snapped in two, right in the middle. This entire bolt assembly came out of a used Wingmaster, unknown age. I swapped out the original bolt purely for aesthetic reasons, so I still have those parts handy. Should there be any issue dropping the firing pin from my three year old Police Magnum into this Wingmaster bolt? I doubt it, but thought I'd check. There are some good bolt disassembly vids on YouTube which will help. I will need to buy a punch from a hardware store, though.

Thankfully, the rest of the day went very well - Another shooter loaned me his (spare) Maverick 88 so I could keep on shooting. I've never personally heard of an 870 firing pin breaking like that, but maybe this is what I get for buying an old, used part and running it as hard as I do.

[Synchronizor]

Broken firing pins can happen. It doesn't seem to be very common, but I've seen it before with high-mileage 870s. I've also heard that Remington tweaked the design of the 870's firing pin a couple times over the years to help it stand up better to heavy use (if I remember correctly, the changes were mostly to the rear of the firing pin, where it's struck by the hammer). If the Wingmaster bolt you were using was an older, pre-flex-tab assembly with one of these older firing pins, that could have contributed to the breakage if you were really running your shotgun hard.

[Chief Brody]

Thanks for the reassuring feedback, synchro. I just swapped in the firing pin and spring from my original Police Mag bolt. Works perfectly again.