Remington 1100 malfunction issue.

[ToddKS]

I have an issue with my 12 gauge Remington 1100 that I am hoping someone here can shed some light on as there appears to be a fair amount of technical knowledge here.

The problem I am having is that when cycling by hand the action is not releasing and chambering the round. The twist is that the shell is hitting the carrier latch with sufficient force but the action is hanging up. With the action locked open I can reach in and hit the carrier release latch but the action does not immediately come forward. I can release the latch move the bolt forward slightly and the bolt will hold in place. That should not be possible. I have verified on my 20 gauge 1100 that this is not possible with that gun.

What appears to be happening is the shell is coming out of the magazine and hitting the latch. The latch opens but because the bolt does not immediately move forward it closes again before the bolt has a chance to come forward. With the trigger assembly removed the bolt cycles freely and smoothly. There is no appearance of any binding until the trigger assembly is installed in the receiver. I have spent the last 2 days trying to figure this out and am now not sure where to go. I have been shooting and working on Remington 1100's for about 20 years and am very familiar with how the action functions. Here is the configuration of the gun and what I have done already trying to resolve the matter:

Remington 1100 12 gauge

28" Barrel, 9+1 extension.

Gun has been thoroughly cleaned in detail and lubed.

Round count on this gun is probably in the 30-40K range. Years ago this was my skeet and sporting clays gun when I was young and poor.

I have installed a full length Nordic spring (untrimmed) and a Nordic follower. I have polished the inside of the magazine tube to a shine with lapping compound. I have tested the ejection force of the shell coming out of the magazine and it is coming out hard.

I have a new carrier that I fit to the trigger assembly with the Dave's Metal Works Easy Loader. Due to the problem I am experiencing I have barely filed the tang which means I have roughly half the normal engagement between the carrier tab and the carrier latch. I lapped the engagement points between the carrier and the trigger assembly to relieve some dragging.

I have cut several turned off the carrier latch spring to lighten the engagement force between the latch and the carrier tab.

I have polished and deburred anything I could find that I though could possibly be slowing things down. There was some rubbing between the carrier and the receiver which was relieved.

I replaced the action spring and thoroughly cleaned the action tube.

After all of this and many hours of investigation and hand cycling hundreds of dummy rounds through the gun I am still unable to resolve the problem. I am hoping that someone here might be able to give me something else to try that I have not thought of.

Thanks,

Todd

[Nik Habicht]

When you slap the EZ loader does the action slam closed?

[Vlad]

How does it work in live fire? My 11-87 will occasionally not feed when hand cycling the action, works fine with real ammo. To get it to "work" reliably with dummies I have to really smack the bolt handle back and let it got forward by itself, replicating what it does when fired for real.

[ToddKS]

Nik,

The bolt closes fine when the EZ loader is pressed. Right now the bolt releases when the EZ loader is 1/4" or so from the carrier.

Vlad,

I have not had a chance to fire the gun since I started working on it.

Thanks,

Todd

[StealthyBlagga]

If the gun locks open with a live round on the carrier in actual live fire, consider tuning the "springy finger" in the photo below (sorry, don't know what Remington calls it). Just a little gently bending to get the right tension:

By the way, the EZL should not trip the bolt until the last 1/8" of travel... your 1/4" is too much and will allow the bolt to fail to lock open on empty. Even at 1/8" this can happen - consider shortening the EZL by about 1/3.

Edited October 7, 2013 by StealthyBlagga

[ToddKS]

Stealthy,

Thanks for the suggestion. While the springy finger does not appear to be the problem (my old carrier did not have the springy finger interestingly) I did find what may be the problem while looking at it. There appears to be some binding between the disconnector and the carrier. That binding is not obvious with the trigger group out but I can see evidence of the interference on the carrier. The disconnector is pushed inboard when in the action and it is rubbing on the carrier. I am going to relieve that area tonight and see if that fixes it.

I intend to finish adjusting the EZL once I have this issue resolved. Fixing the release point of the EZL would only make my current issue worse so I am working through this problem for now.

Thanks,

Todd

[ToddKS]

I relieved the interference between the disconnector and the carrier. That smoothed things out but did not resolve the primary issue. I am still open to any suggestions.

[Vlad]

Shoot the gun. See if it works. Manually cycling is not the same as shooting it.