remington 870 pump will not lock forward

Cjben

New member
The pump on my remington 870 will not lock forward and the trigger will not cock. If I loosen the magazine cap maybe 1/8th of a turn,it cocks and the trigger works as it should. I have not and will not fire it like this,the barrel seems a little loose. I have 3 different barrels,it does the same thing to all of them. Last year during deer season,it did this to one slug barrel,but it worked good with my other slug barrel. I did clean the slides and receiver area. didn't see anything broken,but maybe I don't know what I'm looking for. Help please? Thanks!!
 
It won't cock if the slide doesn't go all the way forward. Just tried it on mine. Something is keeping it from going all the way closed. Not much help but its the best I can tell you. I'm sure others will chime in.
 
Welcome to the forum sir.

Might check the collar that holds the wood forend on tight to the forend tube. Sometimes they work themselves loose and that can cause that problem. Had one or more at our dept that did that. The collar has two slots on it and sometimes you can finger tighten it and then take a flat head screwdriver and rotate it to tighten a bit more. Take the barrel off first for access to it. It actually takes a special tool that slides over the thing and makes it a lot easier. The collar is #29 in the picture below. Brownells sells the tool but sometimes you can get by without it. When that collar gets loose, it wont allow the mechanism to fully engage the fire controls and sometimes it wont fire. I've seen barrels and forends come completely off the 870 on the range when they they let go. That'd be my guess anyway. Check it out and let us know.

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I have a tool for #29 (forearm retaining nut) that I made from a piece of pipe of the correct dia. Used a die grinder to remove material and leave two "ears" to fit in slots in #29 drilled holes on other end so I could slip a screwdriver across to make a T-handle.
 
Good idea Brad. Yeah, its basically a pipe with the two tabs. The only reason I bought the tool was because my dept paid for it and I was working full time LE and we had 870s that were occasionally causing problems. We bought a bunch of new 870s about 3 years ago and I wasnt impressed with the quality of the newer guns. They're ok, but a shotgun is needed when its needed. By the time we put surefire forends with lights on them and they got some use, those retaining nuts tended to get loose and cause the same problems. I think I ended up putting a drop or two of purple locktite on the threads to keep them from becoming loose and we havent had any problems since.

Hope that helps Cjben and my bets are on that being the problem. Those things tend to loosen up over the years. I went through the 870 Armorers course about 6 years ago with Remington so my brain cells might still retain a little bit of what we learned. If thats not it, I'd suspect its something in the bolt and/or trigger pack, but the 870 is pretty much bullet proof in those areas. The only other thing I can think of is perhaps the magazine tube has loosened where it screws into the receiver. Simple fix there...just add a couple drops of locktite and hand tighten it back up

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it's fixed!! it was the forearm retaining nut. I tightened it the best I could with my fingers and a screw driver. I will order the tool so I can make sure it is all the way tight. Thanks for the help,saved me time and money!!
 
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