are mossberg guns good or garbage?

jds,
I believe the reason the Mossberg is a 3 and 3.5 only gun is so they could specifically design the gun for high power loads. How often have you heard the argument, "that this (insert name of gun) 3.5 autoloader won't shoot 2.75 loads for crap." Mossberg got around this by plainly saying the 935 isn't designed to cycle the light loads. This allows them to make the gun less expensive because they really don't have to deal with all the self-regulating stuff. I have heard from others (please correct me if I'm wrong) that Mossberg is coming out with a 2.75 and 3 inch autoloader sometime next year for the upland and target crowd. To answer your question about why not a 10 gauge, the big 10's are effective but finding ammo can be tough in certain areas. The 12 is a universal cartridge that is available everywhere. Also, if you don't reload, the shot size selection is much more limited in the 10 gauge. The 3 inch 12 comes in a large variety of shot sizes including the smaller shot sizes that are ideal for close ducks. Maybe Mossberg has gotten away from the one gun for everything attitute, which isn't nessisarily(sp) a bad thing.

HunterJon,
Only one person amongst my friends has had problems with his semi-auto 12-GA, 3-1/2 shotgun shooting 1-1/8 oz 2-3/4 inch shells. The gun is a Benelli SBE. He told me the other night that his gun was better now since it's starting to break in. In the group there are 5-Benelli SBE, 2-Beretta 391 Extremas, 1-Browning Gold Hunter, 1-Remington 1187 Super Magnum and a Charles Daly Maxi-Mag. My Beretta 391 Extrema shoots all 12-GA size loads consistently with out any problems. I do see this complaint often from many regarding these type guns on this message board. Maybe our small group is just lucky or using better grade shells… I agree that the 12 gauge 3-1/2 inch shells are easier to find then the 10. Also 10-GA shells are impossible to find in duck loads for certain. I was just curious why Mossberg didn't build the 935 to take the lighter 12-gauge rounds. I sent an email to OF Mossberg 3 years ago. I asked where their 3-1/2 autoloader was since I saw an article on a 935 prototype in Peterson's Shotgun magazine. A gentleman from Mossberg replied back that they had problems with the prototype guns cycling shells. I was wondering if their fix was to stamp 3 and 3-1/2 shells only on the barrel? I did get a chance to pick up a 935 for the first time tonight. It seems to be a very well put together shotgun at $400.00. It is the heaviest 3-1/2 inch semi-auto I've picked up so far. I just bought a new MP-153 for $269.00 from CDNN thanks to Gordon. I'm hearing rumors that this gun is very heavy also. The MP-153 will run the 2-3/4 inch shells like all the others except the 935… I must admit having doubts regarding this supposed feat at its price range. The gun should be here tomorrow so I'll let everyone know in a few weeks how things go. We haven't heard about Mossberg releasing any upland field autoloaders as of yet. Sounds like they are reinventing the wheel since they just discontinued the 9200. These guns should be interesting to see if they release them. Thanks for replying to my message and (The best of luck to the Hokies.!) even though I'm a Pitt fan. I'll root for anyone who can beat those Canes.

I think mossberg guns are garbage, let me tell you why. My first shotgun was a mossberg 500. After a couple of months the plastic safety cracked in two and fell apart, I had to buy a metal replacement from Brownells. Seems there is an entire industry to replace that safety, that mossberg has to know was bad. What are their engineers thinking. Ever hear of continual improvement?

My friend bought a new 500, had many problems and sent it back to the factory.

I then bought a 695 slug gun. The magazine is only held in place by a 1/16 piece of sheet metal, well, after 12 shots the magazine started to fall out every shot. Had to turn it into a top loader. Then the extractor broke, it was an investment casting. They wanted me to send the entire gun back for service. I said send me an extractor, they refused, had to buy one from brownells.

In short, I am not impressed with mossberg engineering, perhaps this is why people pay so much for older shotguns.

I bought an 835 about 2 years after the 3 1/2 inch came out. I bought a rifled slug barrel for it thinking it would be great for deer hunting as well. It didn't shoot slugs very accurately at all- better than a smothbore, but not what my brother's 870 did. I had a few other problems with it- sometimes the firing pin wouldn't hit the shell hard enough to discharge it. This happened on a deer once, and that's when I bought my 870 supermag with a rifled barrel. With the 835 I went back and forth with Mossberg and a local gunsmith, and finally it worked well.

The thing the 835 does better than any gun I have shot is hold nice, tight groups for turkey hunting. It shoots better than my 870 supermag, and I have tested both with various 3 1/2 inch loads (including Hevishot). I put a red dot scope on it, and I would take it over any gun in the world for Turkey hunting. Because of the overbored barrel and porting it doesn't kick as bad, and it gets tighter groups. I now use it for turkey hunting, goose hunting, and deer hunting when pushing in thick brush (with 3 1/2" buckshot). For deer hunting with a rifled barrel, I can't beat my 870.

So, I guess I would summarize and say Mossbergs definately have their niche. For my first choice though I would probably tae an 870. The differences in the patterns aren't *that* great, and the 870 is a far superior deer gun when teamed with the rifled barrel, in my experience.