Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Gunsmithing 870 locking up

I was at the range this weekend and had to put my 870 Express away because it kept locking shut after each shot (target 7 1/2s). I even had to take the barrel off to clear the last one. Any ideas??

Back in the late 60's I had a similar problem while duck hunting. I managed to get the trigger assy. out & found a small piece of a stick wedged inside. Removed it & life was good again..

Edit to add...Pop the two pins out holding the trigger assy in the receiver & pull it out. You can then work the bolt release & trigger (I put a finger over the hammer)& see how everything works. You say you were at the range shooting target 7 1/2's? Reloads??? Let me know if you find a primer inside...

How about a stray piece of shot that wandered around until it got mashed in someplace?

Many of these guns left the factory with rough chambers. Wrap steel wool around short section of a cleaning rod, attach it to your electric drill and go at it. steel head shells complicate the problem. Also it may be just a matter of switching to another brand of shell

If you mean you had to take the barrel off to remove the shell case (via dowel or similar down the bore, you have a chamber fouling/surface rust problem..

IF that's the case, it should be fully cleaned and polished.. tommyt's method can work; make sure the steel wool fits rather tightly in the chamber and use oil during the process.. Clean the chamber after polishing and try shooting it again.. Let us know more when you can..

I see this too often at 4-H trap, hard to convince the kids (and some parents) to make an extra effort to keep the chamber clean. Bore-size brushes just float through. A sharp rap with a rod down the barrel while pulling down on the forend (butt on the ground) works. Otherwise you can yank on it until you tear through the rim.

Thanks for the replies so far...

It was a new 18 1/2" cyl bore barrel so I'd be surprised if it's rust but that would make sense due to what was happening so I'll check it out. I'm a big 870 fan and this REALLY bummed me out....

I sure hope I can get it fixed fast and for good!!

New? Saw a new 11-87 not long ago where the oil Remington had used (for preservation) turned gummy after a few boxes. If you haven't, a good cleaning to get the factory oil out and it may be ok. (And no anti-seize on the choke tube, just packing oil.)

You'd be surprised how many 'new' factory shotgun barrels come with fouled/sticky chambers.. Not to mention really bad tooling marks that make extraction difficult..

I had a factory new 870 where the chamber had a little ridge in the metal at the front edge. Fire the shell and it would swell up and have to be pried out of the chamber like yours. Took it to my smith who ran a chamber reamer in there and cleaned up the lip and all was well with the world again. Ryan

I had a similiar situation happen with mine. The ejecter is staked into the receiver, and it broke. The ejecter is a thin piece of stamped metal, and when it broke, it fell down into the mechanism, efectively locking it up.

Removing the broken piece fixed it, and surprisingly, the shells would still eject with the ejecter broken.

I never did have it repaired, just use it like it is.

+1 on the steel based shells. I have seen this with 870s a few times. I have used them in other guns just fine but they haver run through my friends 870.

You might want to check the extractor cut out on the barrel. With use, the extractor will cause a small bit of metal to deform in this area into the chamber causing the bases to hang when fired. Unfired shells will function no problem though. It takes the swelling of the bases after firing to cause it. I've had to fix this on our work guns.