Threw in the towel and took it back to my Gunsmith. He will also check to see why the accuracy has fallen off. I'll report back on how it works out.
Bill
I had a few talks with Joe? at Mossberg and the feed tube is one of the subjects. He said he asked about the tube before and was told that it is held in with blue thread sealer. There may be a flare on the end also which holds it in the receiver and removing it would mean stripping out everything in the receiver. I did not look mine over to see if it was possible but I am not mechanical. I know I could feel a lot of resistance when I had the trouble with the follower and never got it to pull out more than about 1/8 inch. Flaring the end made sense to me. Blue juice to hold it also.