870 Reassembly Problem

[Eric Gregg]

I am wondering if anyone else has had a problem that I have run into with my 870 Remington. The slide bars are a pain to get back into place. I dissassmbled to clean it and when I tried to put it back together that bars are not going in easily. I know that you have to mash the insides to get them to slide into place, but this is a pain problem. It seems to only happen on the youth models.

If you had that problem, then what did you do to fix it?

[redarrow]

Both of my 20 ga sluggers were a royal pain to reassemble. Read the instruction carefully. I read mine at least half a dozen times and noticed I was doping it backwards.Be patient.

[Eric Gregg]

I finally got that thing back together. Man is it a pain. You have to do it just right. I kid you not that it took me almost 2 days to figure that thing out.
Is the 1187 hard to reassemble like the 870? If not, I may make a switch to an autoloading 1187 20ga. I like my 870 but don't want to go through the hassle of putting that thing back together when I need to clean it.

[Hikeeba]

You're not alone. 

With mine I have to watch closely when I'm putting it back together.  Press the right side catch and then just barely move the pump back into place.  Maybe half a centimeter.  Then press the left side catch, curse a few times, and it just might work.  I figure it's impossible to reassemble if you try to explicitly follow the instructions.

[West Augusta]

I'm sure that the smaller receiver of the 20 gauge makes it much harder.

[Deputy 14]

When you put the slide bars back into the receiver hold some pressure on the fore end and depress the right slide bar first. This will allow the slide to drop in approximately 1/8th of an inch. Keep pressure on it and then depress the left side and it should fall into place. Hope this helps. 

[Eric Gregg]

I'm sure that the smaller receiver of the 20 gauge makes it much harder.

This is exactly what the problem is. You don't have much room in that area to push with. I finally got it into place, and with some prayer we got it done

[jerseyjimk]

sometimes you need a third hand