lawson
Member
About a year or so ago, I was at a garage sale down in Queen Creek and I threw down forty dollars for a weird looking shotgun. Everything look clean and solid, and it had a familiar brand name. The gun was a Mossberg bolt action twelve gauge fed from a two round box magazine.
After bringing the ugly shotgun home, I did a little research and found out that Mossberg made quite a few of the bolt guns decades ago. There was a funky thingamajig at the end of the barrel which Mossberg called a C-Lect Choke, a twist-o-matic adjustable dealy with three settings: Full, Mod, and Imp Cyl.
I posted a thread here in the Shotgun forum asking about it, and our resident scattergun authority, Dave McCracken, sent me a link to his story, "The Ugliest Shotgun in Howard County". The story was about a similar Mossberg which he had modified into a dedicated slug gun for deer hunting.
Reading it made me feel better about my purchase. That weekend, I called my dad up and asked if he wanted to go bust some clays. He agreed, and I loaded up the ugly Mossberg and my beloved Winchester Model 12 and went over to his place.
He inspected the Mossberg, and after a few comments about how ugly it was, he said that he would usually buy pretty much any gun for that low of a price, sight unseen. We headed out to our usual spot, and after a bit of warm up with my Winchester, I gave the ugliest shotgun in Maricopa County a try.
I fiddled with the twist-o-matic choke and busted the first two clays with ease. The trigger wasn't bad, pretty smooth and light. Follow up shots were awkward with the bolt at first, since i was used to a pumpgun, but i got the hang of it after a spell. The only other beef was the box magazine was tricky to get in, but i figured it out before too long. Also, if i tried to chamber a round and top the mag off, it would hang up when i tried to work the action, and mangle the shell underneath. It's funny, because I've since seen old Mossberg ads advertising the gun as a "3 shot repeater".
I put the Mossberg away for a year, since i used my Model 12 for most everything. Dove season came around, and my beloved Model 12 was having some issues. It wasn't extracting reliably, only about a third of the time i worked the action. Not bad for a gun that was around 80 years old. I took the Model 12 to my gunsmith for some TLC. But what about the dove hunt we had scheduled two days later?
My dad has many shotguns, and i could have easily borrowed one, but i figured i would see how the ugly Mossberg faired. I might as well get my forty dollars worth, right?
We arrived at the spot right before dawn. The sky was turning from black to indigo blue, and the doves were moving. There were four of us: my father with his 870 Wingmaster in 20 gauge, his friend John with an Ithaca 12 gauge, and John's son Luke with a 20 gauge double. They laughed at my ugly shotgun and called it names. I shrugged it off and we all loaded up and headed out.
The first thing I noticed was how much lighter it was than my Model 12, which can be nice after walking a few miles. It also handled like a rifle, which I wasn't sure was good or bad yet.
After an hour, I had six birds in the bag when everyone else had two or three. I smiled every time I adjusted the choke to take a longer shot. I had those other two guys eating their words about my ugly shotgun. I think the ugliest shotgun in Maricopa county is going to get a good amount of use this fall for dove & quail season.
The moral of the story is, looks aren't everything. Even the ugly guns can still do an honest day's work.
After bringing the ugly shotgun home, I did a little research and found out that Mossberg made quite a few of the bolt guns decades ago. There was a funky thingamajig at the end of the barrel which Mossberg called a C-Lect Choke, a twist-o-matic adjustable dealy with three settings: Full, Mod, and Imp Cyl.
I posted a thread here in the Shotgun forum asking about it, and our resident scattergun authority, Dave McCracken, sent me a link to his story, "The Ugliest Shotgun in Howard County". The story was about a similar Mossberg which he had modified into a dedicated slug gun for deer hunting.
Reading it made me feel better about my purchase. That weekend, I called my dad up and asked if he wanted to go bust some clays. He agreed, and I loaded up the ugly Mossberg and my beloved Winchester Model 12 and went over to his place.
He inspected the Mossberg, and after a few comments about how ugly it was, he said that he would usually buy pretty much any gun for that low of a price, sight unseen. We headed out to our usual spot, and after a bit of warm up with my Winchester, I gave the ugliest shotgun in Maricopa County a try.
I fiddled with the twist-o-matic choke and busted the first two clays with ease. The trigger wasn't bad, pretty smooth and light. Follow up shots were awkward with the bolt at first, since i was used to a pumpgun, but i got the hang of it after a spell. The only other beef was the box magazine was tricky to get in, but i figured it out before too long. Also, if i tried to chamber a round and top the mag off, it would hang up when i tried to work the action, and mangle the shell underneath. It's funny, because I've since seen old Mossberg ads advertising the gun as a "3 shot repeater".
I put the Mossberg away for a year, since i used my Model 12 for most everything. Dove season came around, and my beloved Model 12 was having some issues. It wasn't extracting reliably, only about a third of the time i worked the action. Not bad for a gun that was around 80 years old. I took the Model 12 to my gunsmith for some TLC. But what about the dove hunt we had scheduled two days later?
My dad has many shotguns, and i could have easily borrowed one, but i figured i would see how the ugly Mossberg faired. I might as well get my forty dollars worth, right?
We arrived at the spot right before dawn. The sky was turning from black to indigo blue, and the doves were moving. There were four of us: my father with his 870 Wingmaster in 20 gauge, his friend John with an Ithaca 12 gauge, and John's son Luke with a 20 gauge double. They laughed at my ugly shotgun and called it names. I shrugged it off and we all loaded up and headed out.
The first thing I noticed was how much lighter it was than my Model 12, which can be nice after walking a few miles. It also handled like a rifle, which I wasn't sure was good or bad yet.
After an hour, I had six birds in the bag when everyone else had two or three. I smiled every time I adjusted the choke to take a longer shot. I had those other two guys eating their words about my ugly shotgun. I think the ugliest shotgun in Maricopa county is going to get a good amount of use this fall for dove & quail season.
The moral of the story is, looks aren't everything. Even the ugly guns can still do an honest day's work.
