there is a different safety placement between these two

other than that, everything else interchangable

 

Okay thank you very much.

 

i am a new maverick 88 owner myself and have been doing a ton of research on the topics you listed, as i have another thread open right now...

depending on the type of maverick 88 you have could mean different things... i've not quite figured out as i haven't taken mine completely apart so im not 100% sure if i have a newere maverick or not...

the original maverick was a single action, i know mine is a double action. from the original maverick up until a few years ago the forend was attached to the slide which meant none of the 500 forends would work on the maverick and the only way to fix this was by converting to the 500 forend, which is around a 25-35 dollar fix from mossberg.

however doing some research last night i have found that the newer mavericks are already running a 500 forend, but you will have to take the gun appart to find out which you have... when you pull the slide assembly out, if the slides are attached with a screw to the forend then you have the 500 forend if they are attached by a rivet then you will have to buy the 500 slide assembly.

this is really the only limitation to the maverick, unless you have the 500 forend which would mean you can virtually do any modification the 500 can.

please note:
also keep in mind that the security model maverick with the 20" barrell and 8-shot mag, cannot use any other barrel for the 500 as they are all made for the 6-shot setup.

not sure how true it is but i've heard that the magtube on the mavericks are screwed in, some people have said that they are also put on with some sort of locktight so if you want to change the magtube to a 6-shot or 8-shot you need to be extremely careful as you could bend the magtube trying to take it off. Not sure how much the 8-shot mag tubes run for, but i'm also not sure how worth it the two extra shots would be anyways, in home defense if you can't get the intruder in 6 shots then maybe a pair of 50 buck running shoes would be a better option lol. Only reason i was looking at doing the mag tube conversion was for my HD setup because i want the mag tube and barrel to be the same length so that it looked more like the benelli m4. but being that this gun was only 140 anyways i don't plan on dropping more than that on modifications either.

I have the field model 28" barrel i'm in the market for a 18.5 HD barrel and a pistol grip buttstock and maybe a different site setup and calling it a day. which all together should run me around 100 bucks. unless i can find a good deal on a 20" barrel 8-shot mag tube combo but i'm not finding anything of the sorts anywhere. which is probably a good thing as i'd hate to have to take the gun appart to set it up for skeet shooting then back for home defense.

 

most parts are interchangable.
the foreend can be an exception.
between the 500 and the 88, there were atleast four different forearms used over the years.
Single action bars were used early on.
Dual action bars are on all firearms made in the last 20 or so years.
In dual action bars you get molded action bars or an inner tube.
The inner tube come in 6-1/2" and 7-3/4" lengths.

So to make things exciting, you need to determine which forearm you have and verify the new forearm is the correct length.
you can buy replacement forearms from brownells, Natchez, or Midway. One foreend is about $20, the other is like $50. I think the cheaper is the more popular on aftermarket foreends.

 

http://www.havlinsales.com/

Go to "modern shotgun parts" for a comparison of the action tubes.