Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Gunsmithing 870 carrier pinches shell - too high?

Hey everyone. So I bought a 20-gauge 870 Wingmaster (not brand-new, but apparently never-before shot) and love it except for one thing: Very often, the carrier will come up so high that it pinches (jams) the shell against the upper-inner surface of the receiver/barrel interface.

I say "very often", because it's not quite always. Three different conditions/combinations observed:
- If you have the gun loaded, fire, and rack the slide to chamber the next round, it happens occasionally.
- If you're loading the gun by thumbing one or two into the magazine and then racking the slide (depressing the action lock) to put one in the chamber, it happens almost every time.
- If you're actually dropping one into open eject port to load it and don't get all the way into the chamber (but are on the carrier), it happens almost every time.

When it does this, the carrier comes up so high and hard that the shell is wedged tightly against the inner surface. It's very hard to clear - sometimes pushing the action back will work, sometimes you can force the carrier down a bit.

870s aren't supposed to do this....any help would be greatly appreciated.

If you have a chance, compare the carrier level (with action closed) to that of another M870 20 ga.. It's sounding like your carrier might be damaged and causing that problem. I doubt it's the carrier dog or related parts - more like the carrier itself that I suspect is the culprit.

Without having it in-hand it's hard to diagnose..

Yeah, if you can, post a clear picture showing the position of the carrier with the bolt closed. I had one in here not long ago with a bent carrier. No sign of damage other than it was bent. This one wouldn't lift the cartridge up high enough to chamber. The repair was a fairly simple straightening job.