A friend of mine got a used Remington 870 12-gauge, and since he's never used a shotgun before he had me take a look at it for him before we hit the range today for its first trial.

I'm far from an experienced shotgunner--all I've used is my own Mossy 500, and just for plinking. So I was glad to find out that the functions on his 870 are much the same as those on my Mossberg--same method to remove the barrel, same little lever to release the slide, etc. The gun had some exterior rust, but the bore looked fine so we hit the range for a test.

The gun shoots ok, but there's a problem with the magazine; namely that the spring is either absent or non-functional. There was no resistance when loading rounds into the magazine, nor would rounds pop onto the elevator when the slide was pulled back. In fact, when I put the first round into the magazine I heard it slide all the way forward and come to rest. :(

Soooooo, I've got two questions. (1) Is there any possibility that by removing the barrel and re-attaching it I could have affected the magazine spring (far-fetched, I know), and (2) how hard/expensive would this be to fix?

My friend got his gun in lieu of $60 that he was owed, so if it was a cheap enough fix I suppose it would be a pretty good deal.

Thanks in advance for your advice, guys.

It would be very easy to check if there is a magazine spring or not, which costs $4.40 at Numrich). To do so, uncrew the magazine cap and remove the barrel. There should be a slotted steel plug (magazine retaining cap) that caps the magazine. Carefully work the cap out with a screwdriver (use the slot on the top) and be careful because if there is a screw the plug will go flying. Pretty easy and cheap.

If the magazine plug is installed correctly, removing/replacing the barrel won't do a thing.

I would say to clean the magazine (it may be dirty), replace the spring if needed, and enjoy the shotgun. I love my 870.

There is no magazine spring in that gun.

Just get a replacement and install as above. It doesn't come out when the barrel comes off, unless someone took that little funny slotted cap out as described above, and never replaced it.

Seems like it takes about three hands to get it back in with the spring pressure (hint, put it in upside down, with the rounded edges first) so most likely some enterprising soul took it apart and could not get back together.

Can't go wrong with a fix that's less than $5.

Make sure you've also got the button or whatever it's called that the receiver end of the spring fits into. That might have gotten lost too. Look at the exploded parts diagram that Numrich has to make sure you're ordering all the parts you need.

All right. Thanks much, guys! I'll keep you posted.