Feeding issues with the 870 Super Magnum

[hkcarr3]

I had just purchased my 870 Super Magnum second hand on another forum for only $ 175.00! I immediately began upgrading the weapon right away from a plain old field gun into all purpose home defense/hunting tool. First I found a rare Super Magnum Turkey Special barrel, the shortest one available with rifle sights and Remchokes, on eBay for only $ 200.00. Then I found a Blackhawk thumbhole recoil reducing stock and forearm for only $79.00 on Dvor. Ready to rock & roll I took it to tbe range to put it through the paces. The first round I fired went off with a jaw beaking, shoulder punching roar! After I re-aquired a firm grip on the weapon I racked the slide and slammed the action forward to fire another painful round of turkey slaying 3 & 1/2 inches of torture and click....nothing happened. Several more attempts had the same result! Further inspection revealed that once the second round was manually released by me pressing on the shell latch, the carrier wasn't even lifting it up to be fed into the chamber. Myself being a firm believer in the old saying that you get what you pay for, figured I had just inherited some else's problem gun! After Googling and reading litterally every string out there about feeding issues on the 870 SM I remembered I had read that Blackhawk had installation issues with their Super Magnum forearms. I thought I had solved that issue since I had already successfully installed it on the gun after removing a little excess material from the forearm, boy was I wrong! A simple test revealed that I had not completely solved that issue. By removing the forearm all together and reassembling the weapon I racked the slide and slammed the action forward, and PTL both issues were immediately resolved. So I slowly started removing more material from the two tabs on the inside of the forearm where the action bars press against up against the material. Problem solved!!! Blackhawk in all their wisdom chose not to mention that you have to remove the two molded tabs when installing on a Super Magnum for proper fit and function. Thank God I figured it out before I had to drop more $ into it for a gunsmith to diagnose. So before you trash out Remington 870 SM's, or drop $ 100.00 at your local gunsmith, do yourself a favor! Check your forearm, if it's a Blackhawk, and make sure those tabs aren't keeping you slide from actuating the carrier and shell latch!

[Synchronizor]

Glad to hear you got it figured out. The action bar interference is a known issue with the Blackhawk fore-end. Unfortunate, but not that tough to deal with. There's also the fact that 12ga SuperMag fore-end tube assemblies are slightly different from normal 12ga assemblies, so even properly-designed 12ga fore-ends may need to be modified to work properly on a SuperMag.

[hkcarr3]

Believe me I was very happy to get it figured out! And no, it wasn't hard to fix once I new what the issue was. I didn't use a Dremmel like others suggested, but a box cutter worked just fine and allowed me to remove a little at a time. I'm just glad it wasn't either of the latches. Next project is to polish the chamber.