I bought a Remington 870 Express Magnum when "Big Green" first introduced the model. I selected it over the Wingmaster variant because the INTENDED use was turkey and waterfowl hunting. Cost wasn't a major factor in the decision to buy.
It was "right," right out of the box. The action functioned smoothly. The trigger feel was more than acceptable (and yes, I think that a good trigger is good to have on a shotgun) Fit an finish left nothing to complain about.
Still, it didn't really see much use until about ten years ago, when I started shooting sporting clays back in 1998. Since then, it has had literally tens of thousands of rounds through it. In that time, I only had one failure to feed...... This was an ammo problem, however, and NOT a gun problem.
I don't shoot sporting clays competitively in the strict sense of the word, but I do shoot with some competitive friends who continue to make fun of my "farmer gun" and suggest that I get a Beretta Urika or something more suitable, in spite of the fact that I get along fine with the 870. Once, while shooting a station with my regular squad, a fellow in another squad waiting to shoot the station pointed out that "you can't shoot true pairs with a pump gun." I proceeded to do "the impossible" and smoked 'em both. When I miss, it ain't because of the gun. Its operator error, pure and simple, but with this gun, such errors are blissfully infrequent.
The longer I own it, the more I like it. I thought it was a sweet swinging gun when new, but the addition of a "Light Contour" Wingmaster barrel, bead-blasted and matte blued to match the receiver, made it even sweeter. I ditched the boat oar woodwork for a Wingmaster stock set at some point, and ditched that for the laminated wood butt and fore end from my wife's Express. I absolutely could not be happier with this gun and even with the volume of ammo that I've shot in it, it appears to have a whole lot of life left in it.
Back in the early to mid 80s, I jumped on the .280 Mountain Rifle bandwagon. Everybody else seemed to rave about theirs. Mine was a dog. I couldn't make it group better than 2 1/2" no matter what I tried, and it wouldn't do that on a repeatable basis. I wasn't very impressed, and went back to using my ancient Griffin and Howe Springfield (which was destroyed in a fire, or it would still be my main hunting rifle).
My wife bought an 870 Express a couple of years ago, based on her experience shooting mine. She got a real POS. It was very rough-feeling in cycling the action and is in fact so bad that the slide "hangs up" often, making second shots pretty much out of the question. The trigger feel is downright terrible. The barrel seemed to be incorrectly threaded for the choke tubes and patterning the gun proved that something is definitely amiss. It went back to Remington and they returned it without finding anything wrong, but curiously, it didn't come back with the same barrel it sported when we shipped it to them. The ribs were different between the two, and the one it wears now is correctly threaded and patterns well. The thing still doesn't cycle correctly. If I drop her plastic trigger group out and put my alloy one in, her gun functions fine enough. With her trigger group in my gun, my gun dosen't cycle correctly. The plastic trigger group is a loose fit in both receivers and I think that this causes some kind of issue with the slide release, which seems to be the root of the "hang up." As it came from Remington, my wife's 870 Express is just a miserable thing to shoot.
An alloy trigger group from a Wingmaster would, I think, cure what ails my wife's gun, but she's pretty much lost interest in it and doesn't want to sink any money into it. She's saving her pennies for a Merkel. More power to her, says I........
Out of the three Remingtons I've had in my household, one is fantastic and highly cherished and I wouldn't part with it for anything. It is so smooth, it practically loads itself, and it was like that from the start. It fits me perfectly now with the laminated stock set off my wife's gun, just as if it were custom made. I can't praise the thing enough. It is light enough for an all-day upland trek, but swings smoothly enough to run straights on the skeet field. It is one of my all-time favorites in spite of its homely looks and uncool, unfashionable pump action operation. The other two, however, were duds.
I don't forsee buying another Remington-branded firearm, but not because of their 1 in 3 track record in my household. In fairness to Remington, I've had a bigger string of disappointments from Ruger than anyone else, and I've had bloopers from Browning (A-Bolts), CZ(452-2E and 550), and Interarms(Withworth Mausers), too.
Remington simply dosen't make anything with their brand name on it that I can't live without. If they still made their 332 O/U shotgun, it would be a different story and I'd be buying one.
I recently sold a CZ 550 to make room for the purchase of another Handi-Rifle to compliment the .223 that I already own, so I guess I'll be buying another "Remington," after all.
-JP
