JimmyZip Posted January 26, 2015 Share Posted January 26, 2015 I just saw this thread. Indeed, it does sound like your shells are "moving forwards" in the magazine tube under recoil due to their inertia. This phenomenon is actually quite well known to Remington - it is called "shell surge", and is the result of taking a gun designed for duck hunting and adding a magazine extension to make it "tactical". A stronger magazine spring is only a BandAid. And the folks who claim not to have a problem are often MUCH slower at pumping the gun. When I ran an 870 I had the same problem, and could only fix it by doing what Remington should have done decades ago - I re-timed the action bars by welding on extra metal then recutting the cam surface that actuates the shell latch. The result was a bit ugly, but it completely solved the problem. In the end I got rid of the gun, but still have the modified pump handle. If you want it, send me your address and I will drop it in the mail for you... I have no use for it any longer. Great info - I had wondered about modifying the timing and/or length of the latches too. PM sent! Please post if this fixes your problem. i am very curious to hear if this is the fix. Seems like a part could be made for this and a niche market may be out there for those that wish to run guns like this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt in TN Posted January 26, 2015 Author Share Posted January 26, 2015 Post pictures when you get it. That's a awesome fellow member. Very nice of ya stealth... With his permission I most certainly will. I don't want to take advantage of the generosity of a man, only to steal his idea and broadcast it all over the internet. If he's willing though I'd love to share this with others so they can fix the problem too! I love my old 870 and would love to get past this - Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kurtm Posted January 26, 2015 Share Posted January 26, 2015 I'd just like to point out here and now that "the AK-47 of shotguns" shouldn't need this kind of stuff to run....hehehe. Great stuff Richard you da man. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StealthyBlagga Posted January 27, 2015 Share Posted January 27, 2015 (edited) Post pictures when you get it. That's a awesome fellow member. Very nice of ya stealth... With his permission I most certainly will. I don't want to take advantage of the generosity of a man, only to steal his idea and broadcast it all over the internet. If he's willing though I'd love to share this with others so they can fix the problem too! I love my old 870 and would love to get past this - No mystery - I am happy to share. The photos below show where I welded additional material onto the right action bar: This modification changes the timing of one of the shell latches so as to increase the chance that the shell will be released even if it momentarily moves forwards in the mag tube due to shell surge. It worked OK for me, and hopefully will help Matt with his issue. DISCLAIMER: The extra metal was added by TIG welding. I am pretty sure the heat and impurity inclusions will have negatively impacted the metallurgy, so I would NOT recommend this approach on a gun used for personal protection (at least not unless the work was executed by someone more skilled than me). If anyone in the gun parts business sees a market opportunity, they should feel free to pursue it with my blessing Edited January 27, 2015 by StealthyBlagga Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mike cyrwus Posted January 29, 2015 Share Posted January 29, 2015 If the OP Is a brave man, lean against a tree and try to mitigate recoil. that, or use powder puff loads to see if it is indeed shell surge. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt in TN Posted January 31, 2015 Author Share Posted January 31, 2015 I would just like to state publicly and for the record, that StealthyBlagga is a friggin' genius! His mod worked - even with a less powerful spring (12" longer than the tube instead of 18"). Here's proof: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StealthyBlagga Posted February 1, 2015 Share Posted February 1, 2015 (edited) Excellent - glad to hear the modified pump handle solved your issues. PS: Would you call my wife and tell her of my genius... she thinks I'm a dumbass Edited February 1, 2015 by StealthyBlagga Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nik Habicht Posted February 1, 2015 Share Posted February 1, 2015 Gotta love this community! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt in TN Posted February 2, 2015 Author Share Posted February 2, 2015 Excellent - glad to hear the modified pump handle solved your issues. PS: Would you call my wife and tell her of my genius... she thinks I'm a dumbass Does it help that MY wife thinks you're a genius? You saved me from buying a Benelli! Follow-up: it ran great through a five stage shotgun only match today, with birdshot and slugs. Wish I could say the same for the nut behind the trigger. But now that I have a shotgun that runs I can focus on creating a good stage plan and then REMEMBERING TO DO IT when the buzzer goes off. Thanks again for the help - Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt in TN Posted February 16, 2015 Author Share Posted February 16, 2015 Got all the modified parts Gunkoted and reassembled, and used the function test and zeroing as a chance to play with my new camera some more - works great! There's nothing like big bore rapid fire... http://youtu.be/let_4XMhVdM Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joe Mamma Posted June 16, 2016 Share Posted June 16, 2016 (edited) I want to thank Matt in TN for documenting his problems and the solution so well. I should thank StealthyBlagga too, and I agree he is a friggin' genius. I have a Remington 870 that I have been using in 3 gun competitions for years. I use a long Choate mag extension. About a year or two ago it started giving me problems exactly like Matt in TN described above. The problems were slowly happening more frequently, and I could not figure out exactly what was going on (before I found this thread). I spent a LOT of time trying to figure it out. People were trying to tell me I was short stroking it, and I knew I wasn't. But I was cycling the action very quickly, and now realize that caused "shell surge" failure to feed malfunctions. I found this thread and a light bulb went off in my head. I realized the action bar modification described above would probably work for me too. Unfortunately, I cannot weld. So my problem was finding someone that could do the work. After some online searching and phone calls, I found a small and new company that does custom gun work. The company is Gun Metal Inc. (located in Millersville, Maryland): http://www.gunmetalusa.com I spoke directly with the owner Michael Semenuk, described the problem, and emailed him StealthyBlagga's picture of the original and modified tube assembly/action bars. Having the ruler in the picture was a great idea StealthyBlagga. Michael said this would be an easy project for his company. I was a little skeptical, but we talked some more and I gave him the part (the fore-end tube assembly with action bars). I told Michael that it needed to be a quality job from a functional and reliable perspective because this is a competition gun. So his work had to hold up to heavy use. But, I did not care about how the modified part looked cosmetically. When I got it back from him, I was very impressed. They did the work quickly, the quality of the work was very high, and the price was fair. Gun Metal Inc. did such a good job modifying the part that it looks like it came that way originally from the Remington factory. Gun Metal even machined the new beveled edge on the action bar to perfectly match the angle of the other beveled edge (originally done at the Remington factory). I'm not sure what they did to finish it cosmetically, but it matched the Remington factory bluing perfectly too. I have already shot it and the finish seems to be wearing well, and not any differently than the areas on the tube assembly/action bars where Gun Metal Inc. did not work on it. I shot the gun in a 3 gun match last weekend (using lots of birdshot and slugs) and it worked perfectly. I am extremely happy with it. I wanted to provide some information on who can do this modification for anyone else looking to have this work done. I'm sure there are many other 870 shooters who have this problem. Obviously it's always better to go to someone who has done it before, and I can certainly vouch for Gun Metal Inc. now. At some point this summer, I am probably going to send Gun Metal 1 or 2 more tube assemblies/actions bars so I have backup parts or parts for other 870s. * I have no business or personal relationship with Gun Metal Inc. (or anyone there). I am just a happy customer. I actually did not know they existed until I contacted them about this project (very recently). I also did not get anything to post any of this information. I paid for this work (and will pay for future work) just like anyone else would. Joe Mamma Edited June 16, 2016 by Joe Mamma Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt in TN Posted June 16, 2016 Author Share Posted June 16, 2016 Good stuff - bring on the 870's!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt in TN Posted October 11, 2016 Author Share Posted October 11, 2016 Follow-up: I've done two more of these with a simple flux core 110v wire welder. It's far from ideal, but I had an extra fore end and figured I had nothing to lose. All three modified forends have worked great, and seem to be wearing just fine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StealthyBlagga Posted October 19, 2017 Share Posted October 19, 2017 (edited) I see my photos are no longer available in the post above. Here they are on a different hosting service: Edited October 19, 2017 by StealthyBlagga Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt in TN Posted October 21, 2017 Author Share Posted October 21, 2017 Thanks for the update - 2 other guys local to me have performed the same mod on their own and it worked great. After they learned about too much heat and warping small pieces of steel. ;-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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