Monday, November 5, 2012

Mossberg’s 590A1 Special Purpose Is Street-Certified, Trail-Approved and Home Defense-Ready

Mossberg’s 590A1
Mossberg’s 590A1
Anytime I see the word, “special,” in a product description nowadays, I pretty much ignore it instantly. That word has been so overworked by advertising types that it’s about as overdone today as “colossal extravaganza” was by P. T. Barnum more than 100 years ago.

Yet, “special” still does mean something, on occasion. You just have to weed out those occasions from all the rest of the clutter. For the subject at hand, it is an apt descriptor, however, and it’s entirely understandable why Mossberg includes it in its Model 590A1 Special Purpose line.

The Mossberg website shows no fewer than 17 different variations of the 590A1 Special Purpose, covering 18.5- to 20-inch barrels, various sight options that include brass bead, three-dot and fully adjustable ghost-ring sights, standard black synthetics stocks, black wood stocks, Speedfeed stocks, adjustable sliders with Pistol grips, Parkerized and Marinecoat finishes, accessory rails, bayonet lugs, and ventilated and solid rubber recoil pads.

Based on the long-running Mossberg 500 pump action and first cousins to the shotguns fielded by the U.S. Marine Corps for several years, the A1 version treads well beyond the standard “civilian” Model 500 “riotgun” used by police for many years. Those were essentially just Hunting Guns with shorter barrels and different stock finishes, while the A1s are designed for hard use by some seriously hard users. If you’re a Mossberg fan and need a heavy-duty working pumpgun for social applications, you should be able to find a model to fit somewhere in that Special Purpose lineup. If you can’t, you’re just not trying.

Having partnered with a pump in a cop car, and after buckling one into an ATV scabbard more than a few times, I have my own preferences and ideas of what I want in a defensive shotgun. Others may vary (the reason behind so many options), but a quick scan turned up a model on Mossberg’s site that fit my shopping list of features, and then it was just a matter of waiting for it to arrive.

I’ll admit up front that while I’ve known others who have had good results with Mossbergs, I’m heavily invested in the “other” brand, and I’d never personally tried one myself. The test sample was an Item # 51663, Special Purpose 9 Shot 590A1. When it arrived, I was quite impressed. Take a look.

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