Remington 870 question or any shotgun, about the chamber, can you polish too much?

[Southernfried]

I have a Super Slugger barrel I bought at a estate sale. Why or how they came up with just the barrel I dont know, or any history about the barrel.

I put it in my 870, even used the small screw to pin it to my receiver after tapping it.

The problem arose, it would not eject ANY type of shell after firing it. I replaced the ejector, opened up the ejector slot a wee bit, still would not eject. . In fact I would have to mortar it to spit the shell out and sometimes the ejector would even rip the lip off the base.

Got on the net and found the chamber area may need to be polished, so I used a brake hone to polish the chamber, but only the top portion where the base would be, in fact I polished it so much, the rim is pretty much gone lol but it does eject now. I was hoping the enlarged area was large enough the base could not fire form to it, and it would be able to be extracted. So far this has worked.

My question, could I have enlarged this area too much? I know the base expands and fireforms, but brass bases reduce back to close to its original size and the cheap slug shells made today have steel in the base and they dont always return to normal and the shells stick.

I only spent 50$ on the barrel, and this is another project lol, I just want to make sure I didnt do anything unsafe, I like my eyes. Thanks in advance.

 

[Griffin99]

Is there any way you could post pictures of a fired shell and the chamber, hard to tell if you polished it to much without seeing anything

 

[Southernfried]

Is there any way you could post pictures of a fired shell and the chamber, hard to tell if you polished it to much without seeing anything

Thanks, I will try later today, at work now.

 

[Southernfried]

I hope I do this right, but here are the photos I hope you are asking for, before and after sizing of shells, after on the chamber but I have not broken it apart to put the caliper on it, will try that this weekend, busy week at work and thanks for the help. But it will even cycle the cheap steel base Winchester shells lol I had to try it…..

 

[Macintosh]

The sticking is usually from tooling marks and maybe some minor pitting, combined with those steel-base shells. It really just needs to be smoother, not larger. The typical advice ive seen is to chuck a wooden dowel wrapped in steel wool in a drill and polish with that. That doesnt remove hardly any material though.
Do you have a fired hull from BEFORE you polished the chamber? If so, what is the maximum difference in diameter at the brass between those fired before, and those after, the polish?

 

[Billy Goat]

I think you are fine assuming you aren't reloading the shells.


I have cleaned up several Remington chambers with steel wool on a brush, brake hone seems a bit aggressive, but so long as you aren't seeing bulges in the "brass" of the hull I think you will be fine.

 

[Griffin99]

you should be fine with those measurements, you are like .003 above spec. Should be fine long as it is factory ammo. Attached is a spec sheet

Also another good way to polish the chamber without having to worry about this problem is a flex hone for 12 gauge chamber

Flex-Hone Shotgun Chamber Hone 20 Ga 12 800 Grit

This hone allows you to remove any imperfections or machining marks left in your rifle's chamber. The result is a bright, wear-resistant finish that...

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