I was a Remington trained 870/1187 armorer back in my old profession. We had 2 870s and 1 1187 experience issues that were traced back to the follower. 2 had their plastic followers replaced by steel ones and the other had a factory plastic one. The factory plastic follower was extremely worn and was intruding further back into the receiver than was normal. This caused it to drag on on the shell lifter as it came up. Then it would drag going down again. New plastic follower and it ran 100% on the last round. They steel followers were put in by god knows who for god knows what reasons, tactical I guess. Both had extended protrusions on the face of them. I think they were actually Model 1100 followers. They looked a lot like the one on my 1967 1100. We had a lot of guns that had been "fixed" out in the field. On the 1187 it wore out the shell latch as the material was harder than the shell latch which it shouldn't have been able to touch in the first place, but who knows if it was ever in spec. Soon the follower was too far into the receiver and dragging on the lifter but also shells were slipping by the latches. A mess all around. That particular gun was rode very hard and hung up dripping wet for 20+ years before I got my hands on it. The 870 someone had an extended mag on at some point with the correct longer magazine tube spring. Later the extended tube was removed but I think they couldn't find the short mag spring. Someone, I'd still like to buy them a beer and hear the story, crammed that extra long spring into the shorter magazine and god knows how got the spring retainer back in. Why they had the spring retainer but not the original spring is beyond me. I about crapped my pants when I removed the retainer and what seemed like 4 feet of spring came shooting out of there! I guess no one ever tried to load it to the stated 5 round capacity or maybe they were just bad at math. The added force from the longer spring was not doing the system any favors. So this gun had all the issues of the 1187 plus the ends of the action bars on the forend tube were buggered as well. The shell latches would only release a shell maybe 10% of the time if you racked the forend in just the right way. That gun I can't say for certain was caused by the follower, but it didn't help. That gun was carried on duty for 2 years in that condition with the assigned person none the wiser that if he needed it it wasn't going to run. Over the next 9 months I inspected every 870 and 1187 we had as I saw them on various range days across the state. I found no other "1100" followers and no other extended mag springs in non-extended mag tube guns. Lots of little piddly stuff but nothing that a good cleaning and some small parts couldn't take care of.
