Bruce Layne
New member
My wife and I have 128 acres of wooded land and we went there today to celebrate our anniversary. I took my new 12 gauge Mossberg 590 (50668) shotgun. And they say romance is dead. It isn't, but I winged it and it's gonna be limping for the rest of its days.
My wife shot her .38 revolver enough to maintain proficiency. It's an annual thing. She could defend herself if she had to do so.
I didn't shoot the shotgun a lot, but I did run a variety of ammo through it. I had tipped up a heavy water soaked log that was 12-13 inches in diameter and about three feet tall. I tacked a smiley face target on it. My wife had shot 19 rounds through her .38, and the smiley target was looking a bit sad. I put up a new target and shot it once with 00 buckshot. It looked a lot sadder. At 20 feet, the 00 patterns were 5-6 inches. The deer slugs did a LOT of damage to the next targets. If I aimed more than 2/3 of the way up the log, it'd tip over backwards. The 12 gauge obviously packs a serious punch.
I shot a couple of rounds of cheap #7 shot loads. Thee were the $15 hundred packs at Wal-Mart. There were an awful lot of impacts in the eight inch smiley face, making him look like he had measels. At 20 feet most of the shot fell on the paper, but it ran off the paper on all sides. This is a 20" cylinder bored barrel. I guess if I wanted to shoot skeet or trap, I'd have to get a longer barrel with a choke. That'd look funny, a tactical black parkerized pump shotgun on the range shooting skeet.
The buckshot and slug loads kicked like a mule. My shoulder isn't sore, but it would be if I had shot more. I'm ordering some sorbathane (very shock absorbing material) to make a shoulder pad to absorb and distribute the kick a bit.
I couldn't be happier with the Mossberg's performance. Some guys on this forum maligned it a bit for accuracy and reliability compared to their beloved Remington 870s, but I'm glad I bought the Mossberg. It came with the high capacity and tactical stuff I wanted right out of the box. And the action is very smooth, easily fed a variety of shells, and seemed like it was well designed and would be quite reliable. I feel that I can depend on this simple and reliable weapon for home defense.
The most impressive thing is the power. My 10 mm with hot loads packs a punch. People hunt black bear and even polar bears with the Glock 10 mm. But it's way down on the power curve compared to the 12 gauge. Just for rough comparisons, the 10 mm ammo uses 6.5 grains of Universal Clays powder. The 12 gauge uses about 25 grains, almost four times as much. The difference on the target downrange is pretty damn obvious. The impacts were very violent, throwing off large chunks of wood.
I felt well defended with the 10 mm, but I think I could hold off the Bolivian Army with the 12 gauge. Sometimes, too much is just right.
For my money, the Mossberg 590 12 gauge was a good purchase. All I added was a sling. Out of the box, the magazine holds 8 shells, and the Davis SpeedFeed synthetic stock holds four more. Unlike the reports of others, I had absolutely no trouble with shells falling out of the SpeedFeed stock under the heavy recoil. I suspect the recoil will be the limiting factor on second shots, and I doubt the pump action will slow me down to any significant extent compared to an autoloader. I like the pump action because it's simple, effective, reliable, and low cost.
My wife shot her .38 revolver enough to maintain proficiency. It's an annual thing. She could defend herself if she had to do so.
I didn't shoot the shotgun a lot, but I did run a variety of ammo through it. I had tipped up a heavy water soaked log that was 12-13 inches in diameter and about three feet tall. I tacked a smiley face target on it. My wife had shot 19 rounds through her .38, and the smiley target was looking a bit sad. I put up a new target and shot it once with 00 buckshot. It looked a lot sadder. At 20 feet, the 00 patterns were 5-6 inches. The deer slugs did a LOT of damage to the next targets. If I aimed more than 2/3 of the way up the log, it'd tip over backwards. The 12 gauge obviously packs a serious punch.
I shot a couple of rounds of cheap #7 shot loads. Thee were the $15 hundred packs at Wal-Mart. There were an awful lot of impacts in the eight inch smiley face, making him look like he had measels. At 20 feet most of the shot fell on the paper, but it ran off the paper on all sides. This is a 20" cylinder bored barrel. I guess if I wanted to shoot skeet or trap, I'd have to get a longer barrel with a choke. That'd look funny, a tactical black parkerized pump shotgun on the range shooting skeet.
The buckshot and slug loads kicked like a mule. My shoulder isn't sore, but it would be if I had shot more. I'm ordering some sorbathane (very shock absorbing material) to make a shoulder pad to absorb and distribute the kick a bit.
I couldn't be happier with the Mossberg's performance. Some guys on this forum maligned it a bit for accuracy and reliability compared to their beloved Remington 870s, but I'm glad I bought the Mossberg. It came with the high capacity and tactical stuff I wanted right out of the box. And the action is very smooth, easily fed a variety of shells, and seemed like it was well designed and would be quite reliable. I feel that I can depend on this simple and reliable weapon for home defense.
The most impressive thing is the power. My 10 mm with hot loads packs a punch. People hunt black bear and even polar bears with the Glock 10 mm. But it's way down on the power curve compared to the 12 gauge. Just for rough comparisons, the 10 mm ammo uses 6.5 grains of Universal Clays powder. The 12 gauge uses about 25 grains, almost four times as much. The difference on the target downrange is pretty damn obvious. The impacts were very violent, throwing off large chunks of wood.
I felt well defended with the 10 mm, but I think I could hold off the Bolivian Army with the 12 gauge. Sometimes, too much is just right.
For my money, the Mossberg 590 12 gauge was a good purchase. All I added was a sling. Out of the box, the magazine holds 8 shells, and the Davis SpeedFeed synthetic stock holds four more. Unlike the reports of others, I had absolutely no trouble with shells falling out of the SpeedFeed stock under the heavy recoil. I suspect the recoil will be the limiting factor on second shots, and I doubt the pump action will slow me down to any significant extent compared to an autoloader. I like the pump action because it's simple, effective, reliable, and low cost.
