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Newbie

fteter

Copper BB
I'm a newbie - just picked up a brand new Maverick 88 20 gauge youth model with 21 inch barrel. Looking forward to shooting this thing. Previous shotgun experience has been an Remington 1100 20 gauge "heavy", so Mossberg is a significant change for me.

Why the youth model? After all, "youth" is way off in the distance of my rearview. Well, I'm a 5'7" with stubby arms. So the shorter length of pull felt right to me. And the primary purpose will be home defense - I wanted the maneuverability that comes with the smaller gun.

Brought the Maverick home and ran through the basics: pulled the plug, broke it down cleaned it up and reassembled. And I've been working through snap caps to both loosen up the spring and smooth out the pump. Planning for the first trip to the range to test reliability and pattern this weekend.

Anyway, just wanted to check in and tell you all that I'm glad to be amongst you. As you can probably tell, I'm pretty excited... Would appreciate any advice or guidance for a newbie.
 
Welcome to the board.

You're certainly on the right track with your complete disassemble, cleaning and reassembly plus checking the functions. You'd be surprise how many don't and wonder why they have issues!

Many of us a changed out stocks to shorter LOP to facilitate home defense maneuverability. There are multiple choices out there and easy to change until you find the right one.

Sounds like you're ready for the range. After several hundred rounds the action will be smooth as glass and the finish on the action bars and the lifter will begin to wear off and smooth out. Nothing to worry about. Finish wearing is normal.

Lot of good folks here with decades of expertise on most types of firearms.

Regards
 
Thanks Ernst. Glad to be here.

Browsing through the threads here, I see lots of great advice - I've learned a ton about my Maverick by just cruising through the forum! Quite a bit of wisdom here.
 
Welcome to the forum from Florida and congrats on your new Mav 88.
 
We're glad you're here.

While we are a mossberg forum, we're gun guys, so don't worry about talking about something other than mossberg. Or even something other than guns.
 
Get a can of 3-In-One RV Care silicon lube and spray liberally on the action bars (sides, top, bottom), the mag tube, and inside the “pump grip” where it rides on the mag tube. It’s a “dry lube” so there won’t be a wet mess, once it dries of course. Why RV lube? Because it’s considerably cheaper than a comparable gun care product and it works well.
If you wanted to you could take some fine grit sandpaper and smooth out the top and bottom edges of the action bars. That will go a long way in making the Ole Mav smoother than a more expensive competitors in the market segment. Same goes for pretty much every other piece. If you were to “polish” every piece that you remove when cleaning the difference in feel of the action is night and day. High end gun smooth. Don’t let the term “polish” intimidate you. It’s just lightly sanding with fine sand paper then repeating with a finer paper. It doesn’t have to be a mirror finish, but the smoother you can get the surface w/out messing up the geometry the better. Next time you have it apart look at the parts and notice the little blemishes and burrs. You’re looking to remove those. If nothing else, do the top and bottom edges of the action bars. The shell elevator is good candidate for the RV spray. Hitting it with the sand paper helps a lot with making the pump easier to pull as well.
RV Lube
https://www.walmart.com/ip/3-IN-ONE-RVcare-Slide-Out-Silicone-Lube/167031702
 
I actually lubed up the action bars with some dry silicon I had hanging around. Definitely a noticeable different. Unfortunately, still trying to carve out the time to get to the range for first shots and patterning - maybe this weekend.

Again, really appreciate the warm welcome here.
 
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