Every year I get together with some college friends to shoot and hog hunt. It is always fun to catch up with them and check out the new gear they have acquired since our last trip. This year, I got to try out a couple of shotguns. A Benelli M4 and a Beretta 1301. These were both a ton of fun and they made me want a compact shotgun of my own.
I didn’t want to drop the type of cash needed to get a Benelli or Beretta, so I searched for cheaper options. I came across the Mossberg Maverick 88 Security and, with a $230 price tag, it seemed like the perfect way to have some scattergun fun without breaking the bank.
Mossberg has many offerings in their Maverick series of shotguns including two security models. One with an 18.5″ barrel and the other with a 20″ barrel. I chose the 20″ option because I prefer its 7-round tubular magazine capacity over the 5-round capacity offered by the 18.5″ model.
The manual of arms does not change much from one pump-action shotgun to another. If you know how one works, you will be able to shoot most of them with just two primary considerations.
First, you need to locate the safety. On the Maverick 88, the cross-bolt safety is located in front of the trigger guard. I prefer a cross-bolt safety to be behind the trigger but it was not hard to get used to this one.
Second, locate the action release. This button is pressed if the action needs to be opened after the action has become locked (when unloading the gun for example). This lever is located behind the trigger guard on the left side. I believe this is the perfect location. Unlike other shotguns that put the action release in front of the trigger guard, you do not have to completely change the grip of your right hand to manipulate it.
The recoil of this 12ga is heavy but manageable. With this gun weighing only 6.5 pounds, I expected it to beat me up a bit more but I was pleasantly surprised. The generous rubber butt pad is probably what helped the most.
This shotgun features dual action bars which are believed to prevent the bolt from binding in the receiver. Plenty of shotguns use only a single action bar without issue but the 88’s action is fairly smooth so there may be something to using two.
I shot a variety of 2 ¾” and 3” ammunition without issue. Birdshot, buckshot, turkey loads, and slugs all ran reliably. It shot well enough that I decided to load up some slugs and use it to fill an antlerless tag.
Even though I’ve made good shots with slugs out to 60 yards at the range, I feel more comfortable with shots under 40 yards in the field. To give myself the best chance at a close shot, I headed to a stand in the middle of thick timber where does will regularly be within 30 yards.
But, before I reached the stand, I spotted a deer in the woods to my left. I froze and crouched down where I stood. I watched as the deer made its way through the thicket moving from my left to right. After only a few moments it cleared the underbrush and saw me crouching completely exposed in the middle of the path only thirty yards away. The deer froze, but it was too late. I had already raised my gun and lined up the shot. The 12ga slug hit hard and dropped the deer where it stood.
A shotgun will not soon replace any of my rifles as my go-to deer gun but it was a rewarding experience to take a deer with a shotgun at least once. If for no other reason than to experience the type of 1970s hunting depicted in my uncle’s stories.
The trigger is a bit heavy at 7 pounds. It has a few millimeters of take-up before hitting a soft wall that gives just a little before it breaks. The reset is relatively short.
The black synthetic stock has a solid feel. This is appreciated especially when many cheap synthetic stocks are on the flimsy side. The stock also features a recess for a screw-in sling stud so one can be easily added if desired.
I can’t speak to the long-term reliability of this gun but my experience up to this point has been nothing but good. It is well-balanced, cycles reliably and, for only $230, the build quality is exceptional. So, If you are looking for a cheap pump-action shotgun, the Maverick 88 Security may be right for you. Head over to Mossberg’s website to learn more and find a dealer near you.
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Happy Thursday! NSFW
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Some serious firepower!
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Good Morining! NSFW
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30
As an Army officer headed to the USAF “Cool School” I naturally presumed any
course presided over by the Wing Nuts would be a walk in the park. I was mistaken
— the arctic cold is no respecter of services. USAF photo: SSG Vernon Young
Soldiers develop an unnatural attachment to the tools of their peculiar profession. Let a stockbroker suffer a catastrophic laptop failure and some critical PowerPoint presentation will likely suffer. The same failure of an Infantryman’s primary tool carries substantially greater gravitas.
Soldiering is a young man’s game. Not only could my knees not bear a proper road march, my general comportment would no longer tolerate the job. If ordered to take some forsaken hill these days, I’d be more inclined to nuke the site from orbit just so I could get home for a good night’s sleep. Old guys make formidable if unpredictable adversaries.
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Military service, for all its exoticism, regimentation, and abject lunacy, is quite the rush so long as you’re not getting vaporized. The toys simply have no peer. If you put a 23-year-old male behind the controls of a multimillion dollar gunship helicopter you can’t honestly be surprised when he rolls it inverted just to see what might happen. It drops out of the sky like a greased brick … or so I’m told.
An M1A1 tank weighs 135,000 lbs. yet can get you stopped for speeding in many suburban locales. An Mk19 automatic grenade launcher throws high explosive grenades out to 2,200 meters at a rate of 380 rounds per minute. Watching rocket artillery work over an impact area is like glimpsing the death angel at play. However, all that cool-guy stuff pales in comparison to the one piece of GI kit that rules them all — the humble woobie.
Even today more than two decades after I left the military, I still use my woobie.
Nothing’s better for snuggling up with a warm wife on a cold night.
Weapon: Mass Relaxation
The National Stock Number is 8405-01-547-2559. The technical appellation is the Poncho Liner, USGI Issue, ACU Pattern (UCP). Everybody who has ever worn the uniform calls it the woobie.
The term itself has murky origins. The military version holds “woobie” is mil-slang for “You Would Be cold without it.” I don’t buy that. In the 1983 Michael Keaton film Mr. Mom, the kid calls his security blanket his woobie. I subscribe to the Mr. Mom school myself.
The item in question was first issued in the Vietnam era. The woobie consists of two layers of gossamer nylon material within which is sandwiched a thin stratum of polyester filling. The whole shebang is sewed crossways and edged for exceptional durability. Those earliest woobies were crafted from WWII-surplus parachute material. Hence the camouflage.
The woobie was intended to be secured within a GI-issue poncho by means of tie strings along its edges. My ponchos always smelled like roadkill. By contrast, my woobie was more like a portable all-weather womb.
Behold the woobie. The GI Poncho Liner is the most beloved piece of kit in the military inventory.
Military Intimacy
I signed into my battalion in Alaska amidst what would ultimately be one of the coldest winters on record. Once I made my introductions at the S3 shop the ops NCO said, “Hey, sir. You want to go to Cool School?”
I was an Army Aviator. Of course I wanted to go to Cool School. Perhaps I could teach the instructors a few things concerning the refined art of being awesome. Just what was Cool School again?
Cool School is the Air Force Arctic Survival Course. This five-day jaunt into the Alaskan tundra is also colloquially referred to as The Air Force Food Appreciation Course. Two days in the arctic on a single MRE is hardly the Bataan Death March, but I licked every scrap of that thing down and also ate a boiled rabbit. You burn a lot of calories at 40 below zero.
The first night outside was 34 below zero. The second was 43 below. I spent the entirety of that second day building a snow cave. Think of it as a tomb just big enough for your fart sack (sleeping bag) and surrounded by about three feet of packed snow. I wrapped myself in my woobie before inserting my miserable carcass into my cold-soaked sack. Two hours’ worth of shivering later, I was snug and toasty, while my woobie and I were enjoying a relationship that was not altogether professional.
I learned a lot about life when I was a soldier. I enjoyed some extraordinary fellowship and did indeed see the world. I also discovered that I really, really hate eating boiled rabbit.
Forget hypersonic missiles, carrier battle groups, and CAG operators HALO-ing out of the darkness. That’s all just comic book stuff. America’s most effective combat multiplier is undoubtedly the humble woobie.
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