I would appreciate suggestions on how to smooth and maybe polish the chamber walls. I think that will help me with sticking fired shells in an Ithaca 12g. pump gun.
Auto brake cylinder hone.
O.M
Whoa whoa.
Start by spinning 0000 steel wool, that usually does it just fine.
If the chambers are rough, 4/0 steel wool will do nothing. Nothing. Send the barrel to a good smith and let him hone and polish it. Won't cost much.
JR
I'm a big fan of 'let's identify the problem' first.
4/0 is about 400 grit, if that does not take care of it, there are coarser grades.
Or, you can buy a correct size chamber hone from Flex-Hone for about $40 and do as many as you want. The finish hone is about 400 grit.
I like the stainless pad from Frontier. It will not remove heavy pitting but the surface will look burnished.
bill
If the chambers are rough, 4/0 steel wool will do nothing. Nothing. Send the barrel to a good smith and let him hone and polish it. Won't cost much.
JR
If the chamber is truly rough there will be highs & lows.
The object is to take the highs down. A flat hone stone will do this.
The steel wool will polish the highs & lows.
There is more to it than just hopping in with a coarse stone @ high speed.
John is probably right. Take it to a smith.
O.M
builder
Question?
Have you tried Win AA or Rem Premiers in the gun?
They eject fine?
Now are the discount steel based hulls sticking?
Ithaca says they have a factory fix for M37 with extraction issues.
Mike
The 870 Express amigos are chamber honing experts. They say Winchester promo loads in 100 packs from Walmart are the worst offenders. I never used those shells so I don't know. I will say this I have not been able to find modern shell sold in USA where the base does not attract standard magnet. I heard Federal Gold Metal paper and Remington STS target loads use brass base, but I don't have any to test with my magnet.
Thank you all for suggestions. The wisest path would be AA or STS shells but I think a brake hone to just remove the machine marks should do the trick also. I was shooting Herter's low recoil shells. I am sure they are steel bases.
Taking it to a smith means a 2 hour round trip to drop it off and another 2 hours to pick it up. It is worth spending some time on it myself first to eliminate the trips hopefully.
Start with a brake cylinder hone dipped in light motor oil. Spin the hone up and down the chamber a few times using your power drill. Now if you really want to make it slick, after the brake hone take either a chamber brush or a 10 gauge barrel brush, wrap it in fairly course steel wool and dip it in the orange colored automotive rubbing compound (basically jewelers rouge) and then spin it in the chamber with a power drill. You'll end up with a shiny mirrored chamber.
I've done this drill on several guns. However, the most memorable was a new Remington 870 Express. It was so rough that Remington should've been ashamed.
Steve
You also might want to try this. Take a 1/4 in dowel and split it down the middle. Into the split, put a strip of emery cloth ( whatever grit you might need for the job ). Put the dowel into a power drill and have at it.
Not all Ithaca pump stuck shell issues can be cured by chamber polishing. Les Hovencamp, former head smith at old Ithaca, re-cuts or enlarges the barrel notches wherein the extractor/ejector hooks engage the round's rim. This made the difference on an old 20 gauge I had issues of extraction of steel headed ammo. In a new 870 Express, the chamber was noticeably rough and wouldn't handle Remington loads, but would properly digest Winchester. Go figure...Gil
I have a 16 G Remington 31 that extracts fine but will let a Herter’s shell slip past the shell stop go under the lifter and drop out of the bottom of the action 2 or 3 shells per box.
Fooled with it a lot never cured until I ran Remington Game loads through the gun without any problems. Milked a box of New Herter’s shells, rim thickness, rim width, brass at base diameter. Wide variance in dimensions. Friend with a Browning O/U has problems with Winchester Wal Mart cheap shells. Never has any problem with better quality hulls. Shells get so cheap they are not reliable.
You can polish chambers have done several old rough Rifles and Shotguns with a split wood insert turned to chamber size & emery paper spun in a drill press. . 400 grit has been all they needed, but would not be concerned going as far as 360 or 280. I like the wood insert to be very close to chamber size, keeps it centered better. First choice would be to use better ammo. But if you are going to learn how to do it barrel that can be replaced is a good place to start.
Boats
I was at Cabelas today and bought a box of Winchester AA's to try better ammo first. That way I can at least play with my Ithaca for a while. Not thrilled with the $10/box price though. I will follow up with a brake hone since I think it is too rough no matter what. If the AA's work fine I will try Remington gun clubs or federal top guns to see if they work. At least I don't have to worry about lower pressure loads like half my SxS's The split dowel in a drill press did not work very well for me in the past. Thanks all for your help.
I use Herter's shells in 12, 16, and 20 with complete reliability and satisfaction in 'most' guns.
That said, steel headed shells of EU origin can and do have rims that are on the small side of specification. Older guns with chambers near maximum may not be compatible.
Steel has less rebound, and can indeed be a tad 'sticky'.
I do appreciate the low cost factory shells from Herter's, Rio, Estate, etc.
Activ taught us years ago that no metallic rim is necessary on a shotshell, just a steel ring contained in the plastic to give the extractor something firm to grab on to. The market rejected it.
Herter's are good shells when they can be found on sale otherwise I can buy inexpensive game loads from Remington, Federal, Winchester at Walmart for less. Some but not all Walmarts even carry Winchester and STS Remington target loads at about $7.50 per box. The big advantage is Walmart is only 10 minutes from my house and Cabela's is 30.
I ruled out extractor problem because after firing (after taking it apart and cleaning and lubing -I think it was unfired since birth and it is 17 years old) I could not pull the forearm back so the extractor must be holding onto the shell.
Well, I did it. Bought a brake cylinder hone on Ebay, three arm, barely fit in the chamber, ran it for about ten seconds slowly with an electric drill. Looked inside and the chamber looked very uniform but not shiny. The hone showed wear.
Went sporting clay shooting yesterday. Sticking problem better but still there. A little better with AA shells than Herters. Third station I was ready to throw the gun out. By the fifth station it ran smooth with no problems anymore. This is not a stiff gun so all I could attribute it to was the smoothing of the chamber walls as I used the gun.
I like this gun. It is a nice change of pace for me and lots of fun. I usually shoot SxS's.
Thank you all for your advice and encouragement. All's well that ends well.
Ah!
'Rough chamber' theory possibly busted.
Slide action guns have a little feature called an 'inertia lock'.
The idea is to prevent the action from opening until a shell is fired, or the shooter operates some sort of 'action release' which can be either a latch lever, or simply moving the slide forward as it naturally wants to do under recoil.
After the fifth station, did you change technique at all? If the inertia lock is causing the problem, try a heavier load on the first shot.
The Ithaca has the release at the front of the trigger guard and it requires a substantial effort to use it. Pulling the trigger by dry firing releases the forearm. You do not need recoil to release the forearm.
This time the shells no longer got stuck in the chamber forcing us to take the gun apart to remove it. The extractor grabbed it several times in the first few stations and required serious effort to overcome, at one point I banged the gun down on the wood support at an elevated station (rubber butt pad) while pulling down on the forearm and it released and ejected the shell. Most of the time it worked fine( maybe 80%), possibly caused by different dimensions of each Herter shell. The AA shells required less effort and did it less often.
I uses two types of shells as noted above. I used the same type of shell for all three pair at a station switching only at the next station. All the loads were one ounce. The Herters were 1290 fps. The AA were slower but I don't recall their speed. I threw in some Herters low recoil at 1060 fps but only after the problem seemed to be gone and the AA's were all used up. It made no difference.
I believe there was no change in technique. I did switch to a Browning Superposed when the frustration level was too high but switched back to the pump after a station. It still stuck at that next station. Then it cleared up a station or two later.
Before working on the chamber, the extractor was not able to pull some of the hulls (maybe 20% but just a guess) out of the chamber and by forcing the forearm disengaged and the gun cycled but the hull remained. This did not happen even once after the work.
I am leaning toward the smoother chamber walls solving the problem. Not sure why it got better as I used the gun. the walls of the chamber were not shiny after the work but maybe the firing and action smoothed it more.
OK, so no inertia lock.
Progress anyway!
I actually owned one of those for a while, but I accepted an 'offer' an sold it. Mine worked with anything. 70's gun.
What do the empties look like? Can you see any bulges in the rims like from excessive headspace or expansion into the extractor groove?
It's very weird that the problem would just 'go away', which is why I suspected the bolt wasn't unlocking.
Builder, The company and Les Hovencamp have a fix for this issue. I think they weld up and re-cut the extractor slots, not sure about this though. Anyway, I had a 2 barrel Target grade set at one time. The trap barrel worked fine but the skeet barrel did what you described yours did. Les fixed the skeet barrel problem and everything was ducky. Les is at Diamond Gunsmithing in Ithaca NY
You can hone the hell out of the chamber with your brake hone and not lose much metal, maybe 0.001”-0.002”. After you hone try using the brush wrapped with coarse steel wool and dipped in orange rubbing compound like I suggested. I’ve done this myself with excellent results.
Steve
PS did you dip the brake hone in oil before you used it? You never want to spin it dry.
I set up a "Tactical" 870 Express for a friend several years ago. Owning several older 870s and 31s and knowing how they work figured it was a bolt parts on job. Not so, Never saw such rough finish inside a gun. I had to polish almost everything. Add rough finish to cheap shells, not surprised it would not function .
Honing chambers or anything else it's important the lap be a close fit. Split dowel & paper not touching the sides won't have as much effect as close fitting turned wood plug & paper, which should be enough for a pumps chamber . Reason the brake hone worked was its fit. Finish lap usually lead cast to fit. .
Boats
The three legged hone was a very close fit. In fact, the specs say it is bigger than the bore of the chamber. It wasn't. Of course I used oil and I think I removed one or two thousandths from each side, no more.
It has been fun and I learned a lot and I do appreciate all the help I received from you all. The collective knowledge here is amazing. The gun is running and sometimes it is best to leave alone things that work so I will now just use it and enjoy it. I suspect it was the chamber roughness and if its ugly head re-emerges I will try the orange rubbing compound routine.
You can use rubbing compound depending on the surface you are starting with. I like course grit then work through the grits to final finish, not spending a lot of time with any one, each one removing the marks from the last. Valve Grinding compound is a good start for a rough job.
Boats
Builder, may have missed it but what gauge shotgun? Also, can you post some info or PM me on the hone you used?
Thanks
Kirk
12 gauge. The hone I used is from Amazon
:
Lisle 10000 Brake Cylinder Hone
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Square ends of stones hone to the end in step-cut and blind-end cylinders
240 Grit stones are 1 1/8" long
Flexible driver
Skin-packed
240 like the hone you show grit not all that aggressive and probably a good one for a rough not rusted chamber job. Some good charts on line showing the grit rating different compounds, papers, steel wool, 3 M pads etc, worth a look. Guessing only shiny chamber raw metal not coated with something like Crome, probably finished 400 or 600.
My go to for rough starts is Permetex valve grinding compound. 150 I think it is, don't stay with it any longer than needed then move through the grits smoothing out the lines one before left.
Outside work on my lathe this weekend finished with 2000 grit paper. Shines like a mirror. From 150 start 10 papers to get to 2000 . Main thing any finish work is go through the grits methodically don't skip one stop when it's good enough.
Boats
Another thing to check is the outside diameter and concentricity of the shell rim causing the problem extraction or ejection. The steel heads can easily cause this problem. A lot of times the rim cut on the chamber may be on the small size, as opposed to SAMMI specifications. That coupled with oversize and/or nonconcentric rims, and steels resistance to sizing dies can cause the problems. Too bad the brass heads are all but gone.