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Shotgun Slug Issues

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stickflinger

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I purchased a new 12 ga. Remington 870 Slug Gun the other day, and was able to make it out to the range yesterday to sight in some shells. I took with me some Lightfield Hybred EXP's, Winchester BRI Sabots, and some Hornaday SST's. I figured one of the three would fly decent. Well they didn't, but that is not the purpose of this thread.

I shot 1 box of each. Every single one of the Lightfields jammed in my gun :mad:! They would not cycle. We had to tap the butt of the gun on the bench seat while pulling down on the forearm, to get them to come out. One of the guys with me used Lightfields in his H&R Deerslayer single shot last year, and even though they were extremely accurate, he said most of the time they wouldn't eject either and he had to pry them out.

I sent an e-mail to Lightfield and haven't heard back yet. I was wondering if anyone here had ever had a problem with Lightfield slugs cycling through their guns?
 
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We used to shoot lightfields through a remington 1187 with no issues. The gun yuou have has a rifled barrel correct? The lightfields were always super accurate for us. We were using a hastings barrel and had no issues out to 150 yards. Shot a doe at 180 yards with them. We also had excellent results with the remington copper solids.
 
Banging the butt of a gun on the bench should ought to help everything "Fly" decent.
Can't imagine it not.

Come on would you do that with a rifle or a new bow... The 870 barrel is easy enough to remove, take it off clear the jam and respect you firearm like you should.
 
Liv4Rut said:
We used to shoot lightfields through a remington 1187 with no issues. The gun yuou have has a rifled barrel correct? The lightfields were always super accurate for us. We were using a hastings barrel and had no issues out to 150 yards. Shot a doe at 180 yards with them. We also had excellent results with the remington copper solids.
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Yep, it's a rifled barrel. I wanted to try these lightfields simply because of exactly what you said. I had heard nothing but good things about them. Everyone that I knew that had used them, loved them. None of those guys were shooting an 870 though.
 
Earl E. November said:
Banging the butt of a gun on the bench should ought to help everything "Fly" decent.
Can't imagine it not.

Come on would you do that with a rifle or a new bow... The 870 barrel is easy enough to remove, take it off clear the jam and respect you firearm like you should.
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Yeah, after looking at my original post, my description probably sounds worse than what it was. We considered taking off the barrel, but all it took was a bit of "persuasion" to open the chamber and extract the shell. Couple of the times we just had to pull the forearm back with 2 hands to eject the shell. Other times were more of a "tap" against the bench rather than a "beat", just to get the slide going. Believe me, if it would have taken more, I would have disassembled. I was also only loading 1 shell at a time. Was never any in the magazine. The gun is being used with open sights, so there is no scope issues. I have or have had nearly every type and style of firearm in my personal arsenal. I take great care of all of them, and exhibit extreme caution and safety on the range. Sorry for the confusion.

All the shells I shot were 2 3/4". We did notice that the Lightfields were almost 1/4" longer after they were shot than the Winchesters or Hornadys. Not sure if that could have been an issue or not. Either that or the shells "swelled" (for lack of a better term) after they were shot. Can't wait to hear what Lightfield has to say.
 
Earl E. November said:
Banging the butt of a gun on the bench should ought to help everything "Fly" decent.
Can't imagine it not.

Come on would you do that with a rifle or a new bow... The 870 barrel is easy enough to remove, take it off clear the jam and respect you firearm like you should.
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Actually, pulling down on the forearm while striking the butt of the shotgun on the ground is the correct technique for clearing the malfunction that you described(failure to eject). Trust me the 870 can take it, especially if its a newer gun. If you turn the shotgun upside down and look at the shell carrier (the thing that you push up to load shells into the magazine), you'll see that there is a kind of a u-shaped cut-out in it. That cut is there to relieve pressure that is placed on the shell carrier while striking it on the ground and pulling on the action. If your shotgun doesn't have that cut-out don't go crazy on it, but if it does pound away....but one good whap should do it.
As far as the shells you're probably right in that they are expanding too much and that is why they are getting stuck.
 
Earl E. November said:
Yeah but can the scope or sights???
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Yes. You're not throwing the thing on the ground, or swinging it into a tree...you are striking the butt straight back into the ground. The sights or scope sure aren't getting anything worse than what the recoil of a slug round dishes out.
 
Last year, my remington sluggers shot better groups through my 870 w/ smooth bore than copper solids shot through my buddies 870 with a rifled barrel... I'll keep shooting the $3 per box slugs :way: . I keep the muzz slung on my back so I can reach out and touch 'em if I need to.
 
870 Slugs

I'm shooting Winchester Platinum slugs out of my 870, it has a 24 inch rifled mossberg slugster barrel. It's holding 2 inch groups @ 100 yards, and 2.5 inch groups @ 150 with a 4X9 scope. No cycle problems whatsoever.
 
muskiemike said:
I'm shooting Winchester Platinum slugs out of my 870, it has a 24 inch rifled mossberg slugster barrel. It's holding 2 inch groups @ 100 yards, and 2.5 inch groups @ 150 with a 4X9 scope. No cycle problems whatsoever.
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How are you shooting a mossberg barrel on a 870? I have never heard of anyone doing this
 
I have been meaning to update this post and let you all know what came about with this situation.

The day after my e-mail to Lightfield, I get a phone call. I tell them everything that happened at the range. I had 2 boxes of their shells. I had shot one of the boxes, but I saved the spent shells. Since both boxes had the same lot #, they asked me to send back both the spent hulls and the unshot shells so they could do some testing.

6 days later, I get a letter from a vice president. I am not going to get into it, but basically he tells me about all the tests they ran, and that they found no discrepencies in the shells I sent back. However, the only thing they could NOT replicate was the variance in temperatures. He said that if it was warm or hot out that the brass could swell just a touch more than normal and cause the jamming I was experiencing. (for reference, the shells had been in my truck the entire day before hitting the range, it was sunny out and warm enough for shorts and a t-shirt, so it COULD have been an issue) He asked that I try the shells again on a cooler day and let them know the results.

And with that letter, they sent me 12 new boxes of shells!! 8 boxes of the Hybrid's that I was shooting, 2 boxes of reduced recoil, and 2 boxes of 3" mags.

I went to the range on Sunday, and they cycled perfectly through my gun. Plus, they were extremely accurate. I guess sometimes it pays to complain! Nothing like getting over $100 in free slugs.
 
Just an FYI even though you're not asking... The Winchester Gold Partitions will shoot top notch outta that gun. The Hornady SST slugs fly like crap outta every Remington I've ever seen.
 
I have heard of people in the past having to polish the chamber and forcing cone on new 870's Expresses to get them to extract certain shells reliably. Just a thought.
 
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