Rob Stewart
.22LR
So I recently bought a Mossberg HS12 shotgun and I wanted to share my experience with it so far and the reason I went this direction.
I was using an H&R single shot for hunting small game. The model I have is a 162 which has a front blade sight and a rear fold down sight similar to the setup on a 10/22. The barrel is 24" long but is a fixed cylinder bore. I love the length and weight for hiking 10-15 km through the bush. I love the break action for simplicity and the ejector to help speed up reloads. What I don't like is the lack of choke tubes and the cost of getting it machined and buying tubes was more than what I paid for the gun!
I spent a lot of time looking for a replacement for my rabbit/squirrel gun. My wife's Mossberg 500 comes with a cylinder bore 18.5" barrel and a fixed modified choke 28" barrel. I just find the longer barrel is annoying and a pain in the butt in the woods. Keep in mind the overall length of my H&R is much shorter than the Mossberg 500.
I looked all over for a pump with a short barrel with choke tubes. Here in Canada the options are somewhat limited. If I lived in the US I would have picked up a Mossberg 500 and bought the 20" choke tubed barrel at Walmart but the closest I could get here was a Remington 590 turkey gun with a weird stock I didn't like. I considered buying it and replacing the stock with a collapsible one but at this point the cost of building my perfect squirrel gun was spiralling out of control!
Then I stumbled upon the Mossberg HS12. While it's marketed as a home defence gun, what I saw was a near perfect small game/backpack shotgun! While we Canadian's have access to very short barreled shotguns, too short a barrel means a loss in velocity so I wanted at least an 18" barrel. Since we are limited to 3 rounds in our shotguns for hunting here a double barrel isn't that big a problem.
Initially I found a tacticool version with fixed cylinder bore and front rails for $600 CDN at Cabelas.ca but I also found a different version of the HS12 at another store in Toronto not far from me that has front rail and comes with interchangeable choke tubes (IC and M) that are compatible with Beretta/Benelli Mobil Chokes... for only $350!!! I ordered the gun and went to the store to pick it up last week.
First impressions, the length is perfect for what I wanted. In fact it feels a little too short when it comes to muzzle control because it's so easy to swing around. The weight is slightly more than my H&R by less than 1/2 a pound however the balance does seem a little off. While the gun balances just in front of the trigger the balance still feels a little off.
There are a lot of concerns about the safety sear inside the gun that prevents it from firing in a forward position. I did some testing with snap caps and found I have no problem pointing it down the stairs and shooting but when out hunting, being such a short gun, it's really easy to accidentally point it at your foot so it's actually a good added safety feature. That said trigger control is the only safety you should rely on. If you want to defeat the safety sear it is DEAD SIMPLE and there's at least one video on YouTube how to do it.
Another concern that someone brought up online was the stiffness of the action. I'd have to agree that it is very stiff. I oiled it and even put some light grease on it. In experimenting with with it I discovered it's the friction between the receiver and the forestock plate that is causing the tightness. I expect it to get better over time however I'm probably going to sand it with fine sandpaper and then re-blue it.
Related to the stiffness concern is that when the action is open the bottom shell is difficult to get in and out unless you apply a slight pressure down on the barrel to open the action the last little bit. The reason for this is two fold. Firstly the shorter barrel doesn't have the weight to do it naturally like the Hunter version presumably does. Secondly there is a spring loaded bar in the bottom of the receiver which is being pushed rearward and keeping the action open that last fraction of an inch. I don't imagine there is much that can be done about this except to hope it goes away over time with use.
Several people have commmented that the lack of ejectors is a serious downfall and if I wanted this for HD I might be inclined to agree. That said, I got tired of looking for and picking up shells ejected from my H&R when I forgot to catch them. In a hunting situation it's actually advantageous to be able to just pull the shells out and dump them in your pocket.
Now for the fun discovery! When I bought the gun I picked up sling swivels to screw into the stock. Since the butt plate is held on by a screw I decided to try just replacing the screw with the swing swivel and it worked perfectly! By doing this I now can access the hollow butt stock without a tool (I just use the sling to turn the swivel!) This means that I can store a small survival kit and/or some shells in the butt and access them easily!
One other thing about the butt. Being hollow makes it LOUD out in the bush. I kept hitting it on the buttons on my jacket pocket and it was quite noisy. To solve the problem I opened up the butt and stuffed it with a bunch of foam I had. I don't want to permanently fill the butt since I'm going to put together a survival kit to put inside. That being said, I will try to wrap the kit in a cloth that or something that will help deaden the noise and double as a water strainer etc.
So there you have it! I'm really happy with my HS12 considering what it is and what I want to use it for. If I get a shotgun deer tag next year I'm going to mount my red dot on it and use it as a slug gun as well.
One other comment I have for Mossberg. They should consider making a version of the HS12 targeted to people like me who want it for backpacking/hunting. They could make it camo and include a full set of choke tubes as well as sling swivels installed like I did with the hollow butt as a feature.
TL;DR Mossberg HS12 might not be a great home defence gun but it's actually a great backpackable hunting shotgun.
I was using an H&R single shot for hunting small game. The model I have is a 162 which has a front blade sight and a rear fold down sight similar to the setup on a 10/22. The barrel is 24" long but is a fixed cylinder bore. I love the length and weight for hiking 10-15 km through the bush. I love the break action for simplicity and the ejector to help speed up reloads. What I don't like is the lack of choke tubes and the cost of getting it machined and buying tubes was more than what I paid for the gun!
I spent a lot of time looking for a replacement for my rabbit/squirrel gun. My wife's Mossberg 500 comes with a cylinder bore 18.5" barrel and a fixed modified choke 28" barrel. I just find the longer barrel is annoying and a pain in the butt in the woods. Keep in mind the overall length of my H&R is much shorter than the Mossberg 500.
I looked all over for a pump with a short barrel with choke tubes. Here in Canada the options are somewhat limited. If I lived in the US I would have picked up a Mossberg 500 and bought the 20" choke tubed barrel at Walmart but the closest I could get here was a Remington 590 turkey gun with a weird stock I didn't like. I considered buying it and replacing the stock with a collapsible one but at this point the cost of building my perfect squirrel gun was spiralling out of control!
Then I stumbled upon the Mossberg HS12. While it's marketed as a home defence gun, what I saw was a near perfect small game/backpack shotgun! While we Canadian's have access to very short barreled shotguns, too short a barrel means a loss in velocity so I wanted at least an 18" barrel. Since we are limited to 3 rounds in our shotguns for hunting here a double barrel isn't that big a problem.
Initially I found a tacticool version with fixed cylinder bore and front rails for $600 CDN at Cabelas.ca but I also found a different version of the HS12 at another store in Toronto not far from me that has front rail and comes with interchangeable choke tubes (IC and M) that are compatible with Beretta/Benelli Mobil Chokes... for only $350!!! I ordered the gun and went to the store to pick it up last week.
First impressions, the length is perfect for what I wanted. In fact it feels a little too short when it comes to muzzle control because it's so easy to swing around. The weight is slightly more than my H&R by less than 1/2 a pound however the balance does seem a little off. While the gun balances just in front of the trigger the balance still feels a little off.
There are a lot of concerns about the safety sear inside the gun that prevents it from firing in a forward position. I did some testing with snap caps and found I have no problem pointing it down the stairs and shooting but when out hunting, being such a short gun, it's really easy to accidentally point it at your foot so it's actually a good added safety feature. That said trigger control is the only safety you should rely on. If you want to defeat the safety sear it is DEAD SIMPLE and there's at least one video on YouTube how to do it.
Another concern that someone brought up online was the stiffness of the action. I'd have to agree that it is very stiff. I oiled it and even put some light grease on it. In experimenting with with it I discovered it's the friction between the receiver and the forestock plate that is causing the tightness. I expect it to get better over time however I'm probably going to sand it with fine sandpaper and then re-blue it.
Related to the stiffness concern is that when the action is open the bottom shell is difficult to get in and out unless you apply a slight pressure down on the barrel to open the action the last little bit. The reason for this is two fold. Firstly the shorter barrel doesn't have the weight to do it naturally like the Hunter version presumably does. Secondly there is a spring loaded bar in the bottom of the receiver which is being pushed rearward and keeping the action open that last fraction of an inch. I don't imagine there is much that can be done about this except to hope it goes away over time with use.
Several people have commmented that the lack of ejectors is a serious downfall and if I wanted this for HD I might be inclined to agree. That said, I got tired of looking for and picking up shells ejected from my H&R when I forgot to catch them. In a hunting situation it's actually advantageous to be able to just pull the shells out and dump them in your pocket.
Now for the fun discovery! When I bought the gun I picked up sling swivels to screw into the stock. Since the butt plate is held on by a screw I decided to try just replacing the screw with the swing swivel and it worked perfectly! By doing this I now can access the hollow butt stock without a tool (I just use the sling to turn the swivel!) This means that I can store a small survival kit and/or some shells in the butt and access them easily!
One other thing about the butt. Being hollow makes it LOUD out in the bush. I kept hitting it on the buttons on my jacket pocket and it was quite noisy. To solve the problem I opened up the butt and stuffed it with a bunch of foam I had. I don't want to permanently fill the butt since I'm going to put together a survival kit to put inside. That being said, I will try to wrap the kit in a cloth that or something that will help deaden the noise and double as a water strainer etc.
So there you have it! I'm really happy with my HS12 considering what it is and what I want to use it for. If I get a shotgun deer tag next year I'm going to mount my red dot on it and use it as a slug gun as well.
One other comment I have for Mossberg. They should consider making a version of the HS12 targeted to people like me who want it for backpacking/hunting. They could make it camo and include a full set of choke tubes as well as sling swivels installed like I did with the hollow butt as a feature.
TL;DR Mossberg HS12 might not be a great home defence gun but it's actually a great backpackable hunting shotgun.