Mossberg 500 Special Purpose 410 Pump Shotgun Review

Mike Yardley struggles to observe a flaw with the Mossberg 500 Field pump-action shotgun in this gun test and review

Mossberg - Credit: Archant

Mossberg 500 pump-action shotgun - brief overview

We Similar: The simplicity: The functional no-nonsense style; The 10mm matted rib

WE DON'T Similar: The stock could be a niggling longer and higher

Mossberg A wood stocked gun is availabe for the same price, or opt for a deluxe model with better w

Mossberg A wood stocked gun is availabe for the same cost, or opt for a palatial model with improve forest, a jewelled bolt and fancier recoil pad - Credit: Archant

Mossberg 500 pump-action shotgun - in-depth review

This month'southward test gun is a blast from the past – at least for me it is. It's a Mossberg 500 Field pump-action 12-bore, imported by well-known Harrogate firearms benefactor, Viking Arms – i of the big players in the United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland gun trade.

Start impressions are of a mid-weight (approx. 7lb) workhorse. The gun has a 28" multi-high-strung barrel (that's the merely length on offering). It is fitted with a 10mm apartment, matted, ventilated rib and is three" magnum, proofed (in Birmingham) for steel shot. Its blackness synthetic stock is fitted with a black vented rubber pad. And the action and barrel have a Parkerised-like matt black cease.

You don't take to accept a black gun, though; there is a wood-stocked version on offer at the aforementioned price. There is also a moderately palatial model with amend forest, a jewelled bolt and a fancier white-line recoil pad.

In the US, the Mossberg 500 ranks as 1 of the almost popular shotguns with over eleven million sold. Keenly priced, it is offered there in all sorts of sporting, armed forces and police variants; at that place is fifty-fifty a 500-based line-throwing gun (not to mention that the veritable industry offering retrofit bits, including a conversion kit to turn the 12-bore into a .50-cal muzzleloader). This hugely successful pump gun is seen in 12-bore, 20-bore and .410 guises, and with five- and eight-shot extended magazine, available in the 12. Hushpower in the UK utilize the 500 as the ground for some of their sound-moderated guns (and their little .410 is ane of the best guns of this blazon on offer, in my stance).

I've used 500s for many years. I never saw one in the regular army, but I know they were issued, on occasion, for urban and jungle warfare applications (as were Browning Auto-5s and Greener GPs, many years back). They are a well-proven design, with an alloy receiver and double-activeness bars. They are extremely reliable (and hence so popular with the police force and military, as well as with civilian users). And they handle well, even though the Us stocks tend to be a bit short and low in the comb (the examination gun has an LOP of 14¼", with a stock drop of 1½" and only over ii¼").

One especially interesting feature of the 500 design is its side-by-side mode sliding safety, placed conventionally to the rear of the activity (most repeaters have a bar-type safety to the rear of the trigger baby-sit). So, you lot won't take to retrain yourself much to use 1 if you lot are not familiar with repeaters. Generally, nosotros don't quite get pump guns here, simply the sliding rubber will make information technology a trivial less alien to Brits more used to double guns.

Mossberg Mossberg uses the superior twin bar configuration for its pump gun, rather than the a single activeness bar - Credit: Archant

Pump gun history

Tin can't resist a flake of history, especially as nearly all repeaters begin, conceptually, as pump guns: most semi-automatics are simply designs that have been adapted/evolved to use recoil energy or gas to operate a pump-style action. Pump-action shotguns accept been around for 140 years. The starting time successful gun, and the 1 which established the magazine-beneath-the-barrel and reciprocating fore-end configuration that has since go so familiar, was the six-shot Spencer, patented in 1882.

Information technology was the work of a collaboration between Christopher Spencer, of Spencer rifle fame, and the no-less-gifted inventor, Sylvester Roper, who had previously developed a revolving shotgun. John Moses Browning, who invented the excellent 1887 Winchester lever-action shotgun came up with a number of improved pump-activeness designs during the middle and tardily 1880s. He sold these to Winchester periodically, but none was actually manufactured until the appearance of the Winchester Model 1893.

This led Winchester into litigation with the man who had acquired the rights to the Spencer – one Francis Bannerman. Afterwards a long battle, during which Winchester proved that sliding deportment had existed in Europe previously, Bannerman lost. Winchester went on to create the improved Model 1897, and then their famous Model 12. Many other manufacturers followed conform.

Mossberg The Accu chokes supplied with the gun are shorter than many modern ones, but have a reputat

Mossberg The Accu chokes supplied with the gun are shorter than many modern ones, simply take a reputation for patterning well - Credit: Archant

Technical

The Mossberg 500 model first appeared in 1961, and was improved with double-activity bars in 1970. The firm itself was founded in 1919 by Swedish firearms engineer, Oscar Frederick Mossberg. The 500'due south blend-action, concurrently, has become a archetype of its type. Good, uncomplicated and strong. Information technology is capable of being proofed for 3" steel loads. Many earlier pump guns had unmarried-action confined which tended to bend or break under pressure.

Mossberg changed to the superior twin-bar configuration when Remington's patent on the feature ran out (the Remington 870 remains a blueprint classic, and has sold a similar number to the Mossberg – 10 million plus).

This is a gun designed from the get-go for economic industrialised manufacture. Information technology hasn't inverse much in its basic concept over the years, even with all the variants.

The pump design necessitates less cleaning than a gas-operated semi-auto. The Accu chokes supplied are shorter than many modern ones, but have a reputation for patterning well nonetheless.

Mossberg - Credit: Archant

Shooting Impressions

You are not going to win a sporting clays competition with the 500; nor are you lot going to have it on a driven shoot, unless yous really desire to current of air up your host. Still, if you need a Land Rover of a gun for the subcontract or shoot, or, if you want to accept something you don't need to worry nearly on the marsh or in a hide, this could be just the ticket.

The gun isn't heavy at 7lbs, and it is surprisingly well balanced. When you shoot the 500, it cycles intuitively. It's completely reliable with 2¾" and 3" loads (it's not designed for British two½"/65mm loads, which will jam in information technology). The trigger pull isn't bad either. The simply thing I could error was that the well-positioned thumb safe was a bit stiff. Recoil was noticeable but not unpleasant, with my usual Lyalvale Express 28g repeater loads. Overall, I liked the Mossberg. Information technology is still in product because, similar a Silver Pigeon or a Kingdom of the netherlands Royal, information technology'southward a offset-class time-proven design.