The reason your rifle wont accept rounds into the mag tube when empty is because Remingtons intended design is to load the first round into the breech/chamber, not the mag tube. IE: bang bang bang, the rifle goes empty and the slide locks rearward. The first round you load should be into the ejection port/breech (it will kind of rattle around loosely), then when you go to load the second round into the mag tube, you’ll move the door which will release the slide lock and load that first round into the hole. Then you can proceed with loading rounds 2-6 into the mag tube and they will automatically lock into the tube. Also, it takes some practice, but you can hit the little button on the door with the nose of the cartridge if you do it just right and dont have to try getting your finger in there first.
I've had mine a few years fires smooth and is very accurate mine is a 12ga I won in a gun draw for my local Pheasants Forever chapter's sponsor gun draw
Yeah my two Remington 1100's 12 ga. also do that and it must be due to the design and it's completely SAFE because you have no round in the chamber and the safety is always on until ready to fire and it apparently does no harm to the hammer being cocked back !!! Then the gun will allow you to load 2 or 5 or 10 as long as your extension can handle it and mine is 10+1 !!!
