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Mossberg Reserve Series O/U And Side-By-Side Reviews...

DHonovich

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[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJcQE-Hgg18&feature=search[/youtube]
 
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bBTSzBhozA&feature=related[/youtube]
 
Thanks for posting up the videos, this is certainly one of the mossberg shotguns I have been looking into getting.
 
I recently bought a Silver Reserve O/U for trap shooting. I'm just a casual shooter (4 rounds of trap every Sunday) and I'm new to the sport, so I didn't want to invest a great deal of money in a Browning or Beretta right away. I also didn't want to continue shooting my 18.5" 500, which was my only shotgun. I paid $600, which I believe was a fair price. The fit and finish of the gun looks very nice, but close examination of the barrels reveals some pretty crude welds. The gun patterned 50/50 with #8 shot at 30yds.out of both barrels. For my purposes, the Silver Reserve works great. It breaks clays about as well as I could hope for. When I miss it's my fault, not the gun's.

The gun came with five chokes and a choke wrench. I read that TruLock chokes for Berettas will fit if I ever want aftermarket chokes. After about 2000 shells, the gun functions perfectly, although I have noticed what appear to be stress fractures on the breach face around the top firing pin opening. I'm crossing my fingers that the gun will last. If it doesn't, at least now I realize I like the O/U style, and I can buy a more expensive gun next time. The Silver Reserve could function as a loner for friends I introduce to the sport. I need to add that a member at my club needed to ship his Silver Reserve to Texas three times to fix malfunctions. Mossberg made it right by finally shipping him a new gun, but the process took months.

I wouldn't dissuade anyone from buying a Silver Reserve as long as they realize their gun probably will wear out if they shoot a lot of clays. There also appears to be a "luck of the draw" whether the gun you purchase is a winner or a lemon.
 
Here are my impressions of my Mossberg Silver Reserve O/U 20 gauge as requested by Ultimate CC in my "New Members" intro.:
I purchased the gun specifically to shoot skeet. While it is far from a "beater", it was not particularly expensive for a decent O/U. It is good looking and feels solidly put together. Lots of nice touches in the decorations, mechanisms, and furniture. I dont think I need to reiterate the spec book, you can get the details here: http://www.mossbergintl.com/pages/silverreserve.htm
If it were to be used as intended, that is as a field gun for bird hunting, it would be fine out of the box, assuming it fit you comfortably. I found it necessary to make a few modifications to turn it into a really nice skeet gun.
I had Rob Roberts port the barrels for me (I could have gotten by with porting only the Under, but his prices are so good I decided to go for both) and put an extended ported skeet choke in the under barrel and a flush skeet choke in the upper (muzzle flip is all but non-existent now, so second-shot acquisition is a cinch). I put a Winchester Low Profile light pipe sight on the rib right behind the bead. I added a LimbSaver recoil pad which extended the LOP by an inch and makes it feel as soft as an autoloader (if the LOP is too long, you could take the standard butt pad off first). I raised the comb slightly by adding a Soft-Comb Convert-A-Stock pad (which is an inexpensive way to get an adjustable comb). Last I added a 3 ounce barrel weight about 2 1/2 inches forward of the forarm to smooth out the swing (its only a 26 inch barrel, remember).
Total mods came to under $300, which brought the total cost of the gun up to about 1/2 of a comparably equipped and comparable handling, customized gun.
I cant make any durability claims yet, as I've had the gun for only 1 1/2 years, but its doing fine so far.
The only thing my Silver Reserve O/U lacks is snob appeal. I'll have to depend on my Teknys Gold Target for that.
 
I've been trying, unsuccessfully, to upload pictures. I must be missing something because it keeps telling me that my pictures are not valid. Oh, well. I can email pictures if anyone needs them.
 
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Thank you maierar I'm really looking at getting couple of this in 20 gauge as entry guns for me and the wife. I read all the negative reveiws but they all seem to stop on the forums around the end of 2008 so it seems like most of the bad applies have been purged from distrubution. I use to shoot in USPSA and IPSC all the time but after loosing my job and spending over a year and half looking for a new one a lot of things were lost during that time. Well alittle while back one of my friends invited me and wife to go to a new clays field that opened close to where we lived. I never really shot shotguns alot just 25,000 rounds worth of 45acp. I was really worried about my wife because she never shot a gun in her life untill she met me and I trained her how to protector herself in CQB enviroment in our home. Even with that training she was still kinda iffy with handling a gun. My friend said they had a training course for new shooters so we took that. We lucked out me and the wife were the only ones that actully showed up (32 degrees out) so we got some really one on one instruction with the instructor who actually compets at the national and international level. I was hooked by the second sporting clay station and after the last station and walking back to the club house my wife said I can see myself doing this competitively. She's an ex pro volleyball player so you can see where this is going LOL. I'm not really competitive against others but more with myself and just want to improve my own skills. The recoil of the 12 was alittle much for her so she shot the 20. I know I will have to start reloading like I did for my pistol shooting so I thought it would be easier to just both of us to shoot 20's so I didnt have to change over the reloader all the time.

I'm sure the SR will last atleast 2-3K rounds by then will have recovered enough to be able to get high end guns. I just need to make sure I check the packaging dates of two guns we get to make sure we get one that were built in 2010 I guess. what do you suggest?
 
When one says a gun lasts 2-3000 rounds, what does that mean? Does the gun disintegrate? Does it get sucked into a black hole and emerge somewhere in another universe as Hawking radiation? I doubt it. It probably means that a firing pin ($20) or spring ($5) needs to be replaced. Big deal...make the repair and start shooting again.
Disclaimer: The above is my opinion.
The barrel weight is held on with a self-adhesive strip: http://www.meadowindustries.com/weights.html#barrel
 
yeah I was pretty much referring to something breaking or where unusually wear starts to affect the regular functions of the gun. when you got your gun did you pull off the stock and clean out all the thick grease and relube all the internals? yeah your right all the forum Crap should be taken with a grain of salt.
 
Question I know you can select which barrel you fire with the safety selector but do you have to switch over after firing the first barrel to fire the other barrel?
 
Does the LimbSaver ever get in the way when you are mounting your Mossberg.
 
Yes, which is why I recently took it off, cut the stock and put an adjustable butt plate with a kick-eeze pad on so that I could change the LOP for summer (longer - tee shirt) or winter (shorter - Coat) shooting.
 
I had the same issue using one on my Mossberg 930 autoloader and have been looking for ways to solve this issue. Which adjustable butt plate did you end up going with?
 
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