Chief: That was my question as well. The hammer definitely dropped twice before it would allow the action to open. First time to fire it and then somehow on the then-empty shell. I was worried that the spring that drives the firing pin might be either broken or weak, and...perhaps weak might allow recoil to re-cock it? From my research, I know Remington had some problems with firing pins, and Ithaca re-designed this part of the gun before they built their version of it (M37).
We fired it on a grease board to function check it when we got there (I think four shots, there wasn't a plug in the magazine) and then I carried it first. I missed twice, reloaded and then knocked a bird down. So that's three more shots. I traded with my father-in-law (so he didn't have to lug that 870 all day!) and he shot it once on a departing bird, missed, and then it wouldn't cycle.
Ted: the operator is a pump-gun man from way back (M12 & 870) but this was his first exposure to a 17. We were using some fairly warm, new Federal stuff, but I have some fairly light 20 bore shells from an old hammer gun (I used-to own). I'll try to get it to fail again before I hit the panic button, but I only have 30-days to make a claim. This gun seems to be very clean, but I don't think the barrel has ever been off of it. Just how clean is sort-of hard to determine without a proper tear-down.
Last edited by Lloyd3; 04/23/13 11:36 PM.
