Sears 12 Gauge Pump aka Mossberg

This gun came to me, first to sell for a friend and then, when I couldn't move this 24" slug gun quickly enough and offered to return it, as a gift to me. It came to this friend from his brother who, due to some legal problems, had to relinquish control of his firearms. Over the years those problems only worsened and my friend, more of a Zumboite, didn't want this gun in his home and certainly didn't want to return it to his brother.

It is a typical Mossberg pump produced for Sears to sell as a house brand. With the 24" barrel, rifle sights and cylinder choked smoothbore barrel it was once the epitome of the shotgun only area slug gun. It does indeed shoot Foster type slugs fairly well for a smoothbore. It also shot the old Winchester BRI type sabot slugs well. Both group into about 4" (or a little worse) at 50-75 yards. Brennekes do quite a bit better, extending this group size out to beyond 75 yards. But, to be honest, I never really thought of this gun to be any better or more long-ranged than my Pedersoli Brown Bess carbine. Unless I was truly hungry I'd be wanting to get right up within 50 yards of any deer and with shot, 25 yards is a long shot on small game with that wide open pattern.

As you can see it is drilled and tapped for a top mount scope. this would be right handy if you could get better accuracy out of the gun. Now, I'm not particularly trigger sensitive but this one likely doesn't help much. I also don't think a scope helps a lot at 50 yards but then I've done a lot of shooting with open sights. I'd lean more towards a big ghost peep on the gun and have a Williams 5D for the purpose but never got around to installation. Rifles being permissable for big game, this shotgun just hasn't seen a lot of use.

You can also see the tang safety. Now that is handy. Right under the thumb this is one fast gun to bring into action.

The Barrel marks are pretty standard. It is good to know that I can run the 3" maggie Brennekes through this gun. Those things are about as good as it gets in a 12 gauge smooth barrel. It also might help some with the low shot density due to the non-existant choke. Not much though. The recoil? It can influence your decision to pull the trigger. I've shot this one off the bench. After that, shooting from position was nothing!

All in all this is a pretty good gun, of Mossberg's usual workman quality but likely not as expensive when purchased new and capable of meeting most hunting requirements in VA. this is one I can't sell as if my friend wants it back, back it goes.