Shotgun goin pretty cheap.

RonE wrote:In my opinion, the Mossberg is worth about $40.

I am also of the opinion that the Remington 870 is far superior to the Mossberg in the areas of fit, finish, quality and second hand value. I don't think that the Mossberg will hold up to thousands and thousands of rounds like the 870 will.

Volzfan has a Mossberg shotgun that is over 42 years old and its just as nice and shoots as good as the day he bought it..

Which FN? The famed mossberg 500 went to a plastic trigger guard a long time back, and even though a lot of cop shops and other professionals carry them, its because they are buying by budget, not because the gun is all that whippy.

When I had the shop, I used to keep two or three of the trigger bows on hand, as simply dropping the gun and impacting the trigger guard, would break it enough to prevent the gun from functioning.

At the time, the 870s were alloy, and now, even they may be plastic, I am not certain.

Some of the military models Mossbergs did away with the plastic parts, and are a much better gun.

Actually, the truth is, the Mossbergs are a modified Rem 31, one of the best pump guns ever made, but with the plastic guard, and a weaker FP design, IMHO, they are not near the gun an 870 is, or was at least. Now the earlier ones, with the alloy trigger bows, were fairly reliable, though I would say they still wouldnt match an 870 for actual large numbers of rounds fired without a breakage.

But of course the 870 was not near the gun that the 31 was either.

I guess I jumped the gun so to speak, my experience was with the 500 series pump gun, as i suspect others may have imagined too.

Its difficult to buy any gas gun for under a grand. Gas guns are their own breed, and since you want tactical, all the gedunk is adding to the price.

If you can get by with a short barrel hunting type capacity, I will wager any of the old classic Beretta gas guns, will be shooting when both these guns are broken down and retired.

For example, the NV widlife depredation guys used to put thousands of rounds of 3 inch 12 ga mag each year through the Beretta 303 with few problems, and even the famed A 5 Brownings would not stand that much shooting.

Personally, and this probably goes back to past experience with Mossberg guns in general, they simply are made to an econo price, at least generally, and there has to be some reason for the econo price, of any gun, get the FN.

I suspect Joe B keeps up with the newer models way better than I do, but looking at that Mossberg, I would be way surprised to learn that it was actually built stateside.

It looks much too european. If I recall, Mossberg had a gas gun back in the day, similar in design as an 1100, seems like it was one actually produced in Japan.

I will look on some parts sheets, I do not know off the top of my head.

The alloy receiver actually just holds all the parts. All the lockup in the 500 was steel against steel. Now for certain no one used a 500 for serious trap shooting, the slides would begin to wear the alloy , but for everyday use, the weakest point on the 500s was that the safety buttons fell off, or the button itself broke, being plastic, and the trigger bow.

In any case, there a literally a ton of them around. Near every old time hardware store, put their name on them, from monkey ward, to sears, to otasco, to Ace, all those names and more, will be seen on a gun that came from Mossberg.

I looked at Brownells parts site, according the part number, the two guns have the same trigger bow, for 80 bucks and change!!!

Parts have certainly gone up in price since I had a full time shop. At that price, IMO, those guns are not worth fixing. Not if the bow is the same plastic POS that they used to use.