Originally Posted by
LSP972
The caveat regarding avoiding new 870s, AFAIK, comes from two areas; first, a general distrust of anything Remington since their acquisition by the Freedom Group- an impression I share- and second, the slow but sure degradation of the 870 due to cheapening the parts in an effort to improve bottom line profits. A prime example is the trigger group. I have no clue when this occurred, but at some point Remington changed that relatively important assembly from a machined metal item to a polymer molding. That said, I know of no instances of trigger group failures due to this. They do fail, but mainly due to spring breakage.
Of more concern is that communist safety lock addition. This is where the safety button at the rear of the trigger has a weird-shaped cut-out that allows one to insert a special tool (included with the gun), twist it a quarter turn, and now the trigger is locked. Dunno when that appeared, either, but the brand-new 870 with polymer furniture, 18" barrel with two-shot mag extension that I purchased in 2007 had it. I took one look at that and called in a favor to secure a older all-metal trigger group (it is a drop-in assembly; no fitting required).
This is exactly like that execrable lock mechanism that S&W adopted in their revolvers just prior to the turn of the century; a concept of questionable viability, coupled with cheap implementation, equals a recipe for potential disaster.
Anyway… sorry for getting long-winded; I tend to do that in these matters, but only because the situation is rarely simple. I will say that if I was in the market for another 870, I would certainly avoid anything made prior to 2000; and if that was not doable, I'd buy a Mossberg 590.
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