Taming Recoil in a Mossberg 500 TActical Shotgun

[dverna]

Randy,

It may be helpful if you reached out to Neil Winston on trapshooters.com. Neil has done a lot of testing to dispel may of the old wives tales surrounding shotgun loads and shooting. Another resource would be Dr A C Jones, who also used to post on the same forum. Not sure if they are still regulars there but they are great resources and very strong technically.

Good luck!

[W.R.Buchanan]

got the other gun yesterday and tore it apart and cleaned everything up so it runs real smooth now. I also installed the 18" bbl and Mag tube and plastic furniture I had from my previous gun.

The gun came with a 28" removable choke barrel with a vent rib. Unfortunately it has a lot of rust under the rib which is not going to be easy to remove without destroying the bluing. The wood furniture is all stained Birch or Beech wood, and has been relegated to the parts box.

I still have to change out the safety and mount some decent sights on the gun. But it is my HD gun now and it won't really be going anywhere away from home. Might just put a green dot bead on the front and be done with it.

[W.R.Buchanan]

After playing with the newer gun for a while I ordered a XS Big Dot Tritium Front Sight and the same Aftermarket Safety with the raised center for the gun that I have on the other gun.

The Stock Safety on the Mossberg's is pretty hard to disengage until you've ran it a thousand or so times. I deburr everything when installing the new ones and they run real nice after. They are also much easier to get onto with the raised center rib. well worth the $17.

The XS Front Sight actually Glues over the top of the bead. They even give you a new bead that fits the sight exactly so it isn't cockeyed when the glue dries. Since the Glue of choice is JB Weld it is a good idea to have the thing where you want it before the glue goes off.

Still waiting for the Sight to come but I will post pics of it installed when it gets here.

Randy

[pashiner]

i had the same issue in a stevens 320 with a hollow plastic stock. the gun was way too light, and the balance much too far foreward. i made a cheap modification that involved stuffing a half dozen 1" steel balls into the stock packed into a wad of rubber bands. I know the weight and balance helped a lot, but the recoil reduction was drastic! my thinking is that the rubber bands allowed the steel balls to shift forward on recoil, and slam back against the butt plate a millisecond later, effectively lengthening the recoil impulse. it cost me nothing, because i had the stuff lying around in the shop, so needless to say i'm tickled pink with the results. If you can rig up something similar, give it a try. I have no doubt that the spring loaded weight style aftermarket stocks work on the same principle.

[W.R.Buchanan]

Got all the parts and installed them last night.

The Sight went on very nicely, and the Safety was a bit of a PITB to get back together but not too hard. I deburred all the parts on a felt wheel and the safety runs real smooth now.

Also installed a Brown Coat Tactical Velcro Side Saddle. The gun is done except for mounting a light and patterning/sighting in.

All in all it went pretty good now that I know what I want. As stated before this is a strictly HD gun so it is likely done.

Randy

[W.R.Buchanan]

Sent my 20" barrel to Hans Vang for the back boring and porting work last week. Should be back in a few days and then we'll know if there is any difference in the recoil impulse.

My Bro in Law sent his also and we got a bang up deal on two at a time.

Randy

[AllanD]

a 30" vent-ribbed barrel is most likely a "full" choke.

As a Mossberg 500 was my first shotgun I found that the best way to manage recoil was first a "slip on recoil" pad and second switching to a Remington 870.

But my Mossberg and I eventually came to terms it was partially a matter of stock fit and partially a matter of how I held it.

My Remington wears a (high comb) "trap" butt-stock with an adjustable Morgan Butt plate, so the Remington was more a case of modifying it to fit me rather than fitting myself to the shotgun.

But in either case the worst shotgun I ever fired was a Winchester model 1300 About the third time I fired it I wanted to wrap it around a fence pole, the stock shape was such that on recoil the backside of your thumb was driven back into the tip of your
nose. the third time this happens you want to smash it. AND that was with commercially loaded light "trap loads"

My friend (who owned it) never developed the insanity to try firing a slug from that shotgun and neither did I.

Managed to pick up another older Mossberg 500A today at the Local Hardware store. Nice "lightly used" condition. $160! Needs to be taken apart and cleaned!

It is a Field Gun that spent most of it's life in a closet. It has Wooden Furniture and a 30" Vent Ribbed Barrel, I don't know what the choke is, and don't really care as the barrel will get cut off to 18" or possibly shorter if I can find a way to legally do it.

Another quick project and this gun will be the stay at home SD Gun.

Took me exactly 4 days to find this gun, started looking for one last Wednesday!

Needless to say they are laying around everywhere just waiting for a new owner to come along and put them to use.

Randy

My advise to you vis-a-vie cutting the barrel? don't. INSTEAD buy another shorter one. you may eventually find a need for a long "waterfowl barrel" and should that day come you'll find that the long barrels are somewhat more expensive. And as a general rule it is a lot easier to cut off barrel than it is to add onto one..

Or you can buy a rifled slug barrel for it.

[W.R.Buchanan]

Allen: did you see the pics in post #45? That is how the gun looks now. It got the 18" barrel and mag tube off my other gun and is now my HD gun.

The vent ribbed barrel turned out to be 28" with Choke tubes.

The 20" barrel for my other gun is in Prescott AZ getting back bored. Should be back this week.

Unfortunately both fo my gun clubs are closed due to the fires and flooding. Our fire created a big mess that will take along time to clean up. The floods you saw on TV in Santa Barbara have the 101 north and south shut down for weeks. No way to get into Santa Barbara other than driving to Bakersfield then to Santa Maria and then to SB 5 Hours instead of the usual 35 minutes.

To top it off,,, it's 85F here today and dry as punk. It rained 7" here last Tuesday! Nothing more on the horizon?

Randy

[Bzcraig]

Interesting thread! The only thing I can contribute is; using the same gun and not enjoying the recoil of full power slug/buck loads, I purchased a Knoxx stock, really bad design. The first round I fired, I shouldered as usual, pulled the trigger and the as the two pieces of the stock closed under recoil it grabbed a piece of my cheek and cut me. Sent the whole gun down the road.

[RED BEAR]

Must say no expert but this sounds like snake oil to me. Own 2 mossburg 500s and both are pleasure to shoot. Both have wooden stocks, one came with plastic stock picked up used wood one really cheap. Knew a fellow who thought it would be good idea to port most of barrel. Must admit it was a pleasure to shoot would not penetrate partical board at 25 yards but was a pleasure to shoot. Would like to know what backboreing does to vel. As I said I am by no means any kind of expert. Please let us know how it goes.

[W.R.Buchanan]

Bear: Back Boring reduces the friction on the outside of the wad by increasing the bore diameter. The back end of the wad still seals the charge just as well as before so velocity increases slightly.

Also as far as your wood stocked ones being a joy to shoot? How many times have you fired a whole box of shells in less than 5 minutes? That's where all this beating shows up. It is very hard to maintain your form when firing shot after shot as fast as you can work the action and get back on target.

The porting helps with muzzle rise by virtually eliminating it. Also the recoil becomes a strait line push instead of a muzzle rising punch which loosens your cheek weld and makes the gun slap you in the cheek. This gets old real fast.

The other big benefit is in the patterning. My gun shot 00 buck into a 12-15" pattern at 15 yards. Vang guarantees 7" at 25 yards, and all reviews (literally hundreds) confirm this.

I am waiting right now for the mailman to get here with my barrel so I can put the gun back together. I won't get to shoot it for some time as our ranges are all closed due to the Fires and Mudslides you saw on TV. I will report back with my impressions after I get to shoot it.

Randy

[W.R.Buchanan]

Mailman came and dropped off our barrels. The machine work looks good.

You can easily see the forcing cone extended and the whole interior of the barrel has been polished.

Here's some pics of the finished gun. Still has to be sighted in, and I need a new Front Sight Insert.

One thing I noticed between my two guns is that the one with the Magpul Furniture runs a lot smoother than the one without. Come to find out that the Magpul Fore End has a guide built into it that prevents the fore end from racking side to side which binds up the action bars in the receiver. No matter how I tried I still twisted the fore end a little when racking the slide and that is all the difference in the world as to how smooth the gun runs.

Randy

[RED BEAR]

Mr Buchanan can't say for sure if I shot a box in 5 min. But have shot 400 to 500 per outing. Now as far as it increasing vel. Is this just antidotal or has any one actually checked the vel. And if this is such a wonder treatment then why don't manufactures doing it . would be no problem to make bore larger during manufacture. I will agree that porting does help with perceived recoil but does nothing for actual recoil . that is physics x bullet weight and y vel weight of gun = recoil! Just as adjusting the stock can make recoil feel less even though it is the same. I do own a few guns that will mule kick you the moss 500 just ain't one of them. If .015 over bore does such a great job why not .030 over the gas seal part of the wad would surely still seal the bore.
As I said originally I am not an expert but still sounds like snake oil to me. If there is any testing to prove the increased vel I would be more than happy to admit I am wrong. And I don't mean they said I mean actual ballistic data. Preferably not from the ones doing the back boring. I will admit I am not always right but I prefer proof to a lot of these claims.

[W.R.Buchanan]

And if this is such a wonder treatment then why don't manufactures doing it . would be no problem to make bore larger during manufacture. I will agree that porting does help with perceived recoil but does nothing for actual recoil .

As I said originally I am not an expert but still sounds like snake oil to me. If there is any testing to prove the increased vel I would be more than happy to admit I am wrong. And I don't mean they said I mean actual ballistic data. Preferably not from the ones doing the back boring. I will admit I am not always right but I prefer proof to a lot of these claims.

Bear: to answer your question of why manufacturers don't do it,,, They do. It's just that the shotguns they do it to cost $2000 to start. Pretty much all Trap guns are back bored and ported. My Browning XT has both barrels ported and backbored. We even checked it with a bore gauge. The reason why it isn't done on cheaper guns is the cost.

My Mossberg 500 cost my FnL $205 when he bought it at Big 5 Sporting Goods. I just spent $215 to get the machine work done.

When I get to shoot this gun in a few weeks I will know instantly if it had any effect on the recoil, real or perceived. However that will be anecdotal and I doubt it will convince you, or would you just take my word for it?

In any event it's done and I'm pretty sure I will get my monies worth out of the mod as Hans Vang has only done about 20,000 of these conversions in his 40 year career as a Shotgun Smith. This is what he is known for and people wouldn't do it if it had no effect.

Go have a look at their website and watch the first video it explains what is happening with the barrel modification better than I can.

https://vangcomp.com/latest-works/

Randy

[RED BEAR]

If it feels better to you then it was money well spent. The work looks to be first rate. You are right with out crony data I will not be convinced but I am not the one shooting it you are and if you are happy that's pretty much all that matters. Good luck and happy shooting.