Nolo
Member
I was out shooting birdshot out of my 870 today for practice when the gun had a major failure to feed.
For some background, the weapon is a Remington 870 Police Magnum 18" I bought NIB about 250 rounds ago (1 month-ish) and then installed a Wilson Combat +2 extension along with the "improved" magazine follower and longer spring.
I was doing a seven round magazine dump when on the second or third round, I had a *click* instead of a *BANG*. I figured I short stroked, so I cycled the weapon again, only to be punished with another *click*. I inspected the gun to find that the rounds were loose in the magazine and the follower obviously was not making contact with them.
I unloaded my gun, ceased firing, detached the barrel and magazine extension and took the weapon inside.
Upon further inspection, the follower, which was made of soft, easily shearable plastic, had been caught inside the magazine tube, probably in the joint between the tube and the extension. When I screwed around to try and get it out, it shot down the tube propelled by the spring and got caught in the feed port of the magazine tube. In order to free it, I had to get a hammer and a bolt and bang the follower out, which broke the central post doohicky on the follower:
http://media.midwayusa.com/highres/266869.jpg
After I got it out, I was able to take the follower out, replace it with the factory follower and re-assemble the weapon.
I haven't gotten back to shoot the weapon since, but if you get Wilson Combat (Scattergun Technologies) extension, I would recommend using the factory follower or a new steel follower, because they are made of noticeably harder materials.
The lesson of this is: it's the magazine, stupid.
From my somewhat limited experience, most weapons are created essentially equal, reliability-wise. There are minor differences, such as ridiculous, mind-blasting reliability that no person should ever force their weapon to demonstrate, like AKs and GLOCKs are notorious for, or parts that are slightly more likely to break than others, but most of the time (I'd estimate 90-95% based on what I have experienced and read) the jam or failure has to do with the magazines. Failure to feeds, double feeds, etc. are all magazine issues. Even a pump-action shotgun, a weapon lauded for reliability (and my example is a particularly nice one), can have issues because it has a magazine. All weapons that have magazines are subject to their failures. Leverguns, pumps, ARs, AKs all have the Achilles heel of being magazine-fed.
Doesn't mean that we shouldn't use repeaters. We should just pay really close attention to their magazines.
As is often said, if you haven't had a failure with your favorite weapon, you haven't shot it enough.
I still love my 870.
For some background, the weapon is a Remington 870 Police Magnum 18" I bought NIB about 250 rounds ago (1 month-ish) and then installed a Wilson Combat +2 extension along with the "improved" magazine follower and longer spring.
I was doing a seven round magazine dump when on the second or third round, I had a *click* instead of a *BANG*. I figured I short stroked, so I cycled the weapon again, only to be punished with another *click*. I inspected the gun to find that the rounds were loose in the magazine and the follower obviously was not making contact with them.
I unloaded my gun, ceased firing, detached the barrel and magazine extension and took the weapon inside.
Upon further inspection, the follower, which was made of soft, easily shearable plastic, had been caught inside the magazine tube, probably in the joint between the tube and the extension. When I screwed around to try and get it out, it shot down the tube propelled by the spring and got caught in the feed port of the magazine tube. In order to free it, I had to get a hammer and a bolt and bang the follower out, which broke the central post doohicky on the follower:
http://media.midwayusa.com/highres/266869.jpg
After I got it out, I was able to take the follower out, replace it with the factory follower and re-assemble the weapon.
I haven't gotten back to shoot the weapon since, but if you get Wilson Combat (Scattergun Technologies) extension, I would recommend using the factory follower or a new steel follower, because they are made of noticeably harder materials.
The lesson of this is: it's the magazine, stupid.
From my somewhat limited experience, most weapons are created essentially equal, reliability-wise. There are minor differences, such as ridiculous, mind-blasting reliability that no person should ever force their weapon to demonstrate, like AKs and GLOCKs are notorious for, or parts that are slightly more likely to break than others, but most of the time (I'd estimate 90-95% based on what I have experienced and read) the jam or failure has to do with the magazines. Failure to feeds, double feeds, etc. are all magazine issues. Even a pump-action shotgun, a weapon lauded for reliability (and my example is a particularly nice one), can have issues because it has a magazine. All weapons that have magazines are subject to their failures. Leverguns, pumps, ARs, AKs all have the Achilles heel of being magazine-fed.
Doesn't mean that we shouldn't use repeaters. We should just pay really close attention to their magazines.
As is often said, if you haven't had a failure with your favorite weapon, you haven't shot it enough.
I still love my 870.
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