A bolt action shotgun?

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Lawnguy

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My neighbor told me he had a bolt action 12 guage shot gun. I have never even heard of one and had to see it. What he said was true. The gun had ingraved Sears in Roebuck on the barrel, 12 gauge, & the shell size (i'm thinking it was 2 3/4" - its been a few days). He told me he bought it in the sixties (i'm thinking for $40).

I was very surprised. I was wondering if anyone else has seen a bolt action.
 
My dad has an old hammered bolt-action 20 ga, the box magazine won't stay together outside the gun, but it holds together when I shoot it. I guess it's been about 20 years ago I took it out with the remains of the box of 20 ga to see if it still worked, it did.
 
A lot of them I've seen were old "goose" guns with long barrels. There are also bolt action shotguns in other gauges, 410 was also popular. I have a modern bolt action 12 gauge Mossberg model 695 with a fully rifled, ported barrel. Very accurate slug gun.
 
Mossberg made bolt action shotguns. My son had a 20 gauge Mossberg when he first started shooting. They were inexpensive firearms.

Hope this helps.

Fred
 
I have a .410 with twist-adjustable choke. Now if only I can get the magazine to hold rounds.
 
I stand corrected. I thought it would be kinda rare.

I thought it was cool. I wouldn't buy one but thought it was cool.
 
my first shotgun was a 16 ga. bolt action. wasnt in love with it so i traded on an 870 years ago. wasnt bad though!
 
Over the years I've seen 2 or 3 Lee Enfield SMLE's rechambered for .410, with the magazine welded in so it can only take 2 rounds plus 1 in the chamber.

Interesting but pointless in the end as far as I'm concerned :)
 
Two friends of mine own Mossberg 695 bolt action 12GA slug guns...They have a composite stock and a fully rifled barrel, rifle sites and factory barrel porting....And, they kick like mules when shooting from the bench.
695-deer.jpg
 
GOOD GUNS my friend has an old mossberg 695 very reliable. with a little practice very handy i might add. thats his HD, hunting, all around farm gun, "Beware the man with one Gun he more than likely knows how to use it." chambers 3 inch and shoots pretty darn accurate.
 
Marlin bolt

Marlin took their old 1960s bolt action "goose gun" out of the closet a few years ago and put a rifled slug barrel on it. It's basically the same action with a heavier stock to account for recoil. This is got to be the unglist slug gun ever made, the trigger has about 2 inches of creep in it, and it lets off at about 8 pounds but damn is it accurate. If you can control the mechanics it will shoot a 2" group at 100 yards using Winchester Supreme 2 3/4 inch 1900 fps sabots. I've taken a lot of Illinois whitetails with it. Not as pretty as the Browning A-bolt but $1,000 less. Tom
 
I have a mossberg bolt action 183t .410 shotgun. Holds 3 shells. I have also recently seen a 12 gauge mossberg bolt action for sale locally.
 
i picked up a jc higgins 20 gauge at a garage sale a couple years back.

its the cheap truck gun. polychoke, neon hiviz front bead, folding rear rifle sight, 26 inch barrel, and it holds 5. The goofy bastard can only be loaded with the bolt open though. stock was split, so i gorrilla glued it back together and put a c clamp on it for a day. holds up great. got it for 20 bucks.

same guy sold me an h&r "buck" as well. Also for 20 dollars. some goofy 18" barreled handi predecessor with lyman peep sights on it, and a horrible varnish job. so i cleaned up the stock and stained and waxed it, fixed a butchered recoil pad, and now have a "backup" truck gun.

same guy also had one of the formentioned mossberg bolts, with the tin foil magazines that come apart. didn't buy that one, have already had tons of fun with my dads tin foil mag in HIS mossberg. only 20 bucks though, once again. probably should have grabbed it. oh well....
 
car15bill said:
i picked up a jc higgins 20 gauge at a garage sale a couple years back.

its the cheap truck gun. polychoke, neon hiviz front bead, folding rear rifle sight, 26 inch barrel, and it holds 5. The goofy bastard can only be loaded with the bolt open though. stock was split, so i gorrilla glued it back together and put a c clamp on it for a day. holds up great. got it for 20 bucks.

same guy sold me an h&r "buck" as well. Also for 20 dollars. some goofy 18" barreled handi predecessor with lyman peep sights on it, and a horrible varnish job. so i cleaned up the stock and stained and waxed it, fixed a butchered recoil pad, and now have a "backup" truck gun.

same guy also had one of the formentioned mossberg bolts, with the tin foil magazines that come apart. didn't buy that one, have already had tons of fun with my dads tin foil mag in HIS mossberg. only 20 bucks though, once again. probably should have grabbed it. oh well....
Click to expand...

I would have taken all the $20 guns I could find and be first in line for the next $200 gun buyback. ;)
 
Back when I was a kid, bolt action shotguns were very popular out in the country. Sears sold a bunch of them, and so did Western Auto, and J.C. Penny's I suppose. Most them were made by Mossberg but the ones I'm familiar with carried "house" names. Marlin did make a "goose gun" in 12 ga with a 36" full choke barrel, and IIRC, in 10 ga also.

Most were sold to people who couldn't afford a pump or a semi-auto, but wanted something a step up from a single shot. They were good for squirrel, rabbit and deer hunting with buckshot (nobody used slugs where I came from). They stayed propped up next to the back door, or rode in the gun rack in a pickup truck a lot. I'm sure a lot of groundhogs and crows were killed with them too.

When I ordered the first gun I bought myself, I debated between a Sears double barrel, and a Sears bolt action. I eventually went with the double, mostly because I thought the Poly-Choke on the bolt action was ugly.
 
Savage still make them. The model 210 and 220 (12 and 20 gauge). Both are rifled, but they're still shotguns. They only have a capacity of two though, which is somewhat of a shame (a big 5 round magazine would add weight too, which will help with the recoil of slugs).

They're good solid guns from everything I've read.
 
I thought every grandfather in america had a bolt action 410. I thought they issued them with drivers licenses at one point in time. :)
 
I've got mu dad's old Mossberg 85A 20 gauge bolt action shotgun. He bought it new back in the 1930's and it was the only shotgun he ever owned.

He kept us supplied with grouse and rabbits when I was young and it was the first shotgun I ever fired. Bolts are slow compared to pumps and autos, but he could work that bolt to get off second and third shots with amazing speed.

Even though it got heavy use for a long time, it still works perfectly after all those years.
 
Have a .410 Single Shot Mossberg Bolt action with modified cylinder choke. Took my first deer with it 48 years ago..I still have it,....and will until my grandsons inherit it. A few more deer over the years,..and many a bunny and squirrel have met their makers from it. I still use it often. Brother in law just picked up a 20 gauge for 25 bucks....it still shoots. They were built to last "forever"......and meant to be used,...not looked at.
 
Maybe, as some have mentioned, a bolt-action shotgun is practical being used for hunting deer, rabbits or squirrels or as a "knock-about" utility gun but for any upland chores (bird hunting), the handling qualities are a significant step down from the lowly single-shot. At least, that's been my experience.
 
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