I picked up a pistol-gripped Mossberg 590 a couple of weeks ago and while it looked cool I knew it wasn’t a practical setup. I really like Magpul’s pistol grips and stocks for ARs so I thought I’d give their SGA stock a try—it’s not the cheapest option but I’d read good things about them and like their adjustable length-of-pull. I’d only ever shot a 590 once before and with my shortish arms I found the LOP made it awkward to handle.
Installation was dead simple—remove the existing grip, then install the Magpul stock (a hex wrench is included, and the bolt has thread locking compound already applied). The bolt goes through an opening in the stock just below the safety, and a cover is snapped into place afterwards, as shown in the photo below. You can also see the excellent stock-receiver fit.
The pistol grip is more steeply raked than most factory stocks, but feels very natural to me when shouldering the gun. The front of the grip is grooved, and the sides have Magpul’s usual texturing, which I find provides excellent grip without being “snaggy”. There’s a little bit of a radius where the underside of the grip meets the receiver—it feels very natural.
Originally I thought the stock had replaceable cheekpieces since the top section is a separate piece of plastic—it’s not removable though. It seems to be the exact same type of plastic as the rest of the buttstock, and with the same texture, too…maybe it was a manufacturing necessity. [EDIT: Kratos mentions below that it actually is removable and replaceable] Other than the pistol grip the rest of the stock has a very light pebbly texture. There’s a slot on either side for a sling, as well as a little circular dealy you can pop out and apparently add a QD swivel mount. The flathead screw at the rear is removed to slide out the butt pad and add spacers. I’ve left mine at two for now—the shorter LOP is nice.
There is a large, fairly soft rubber butt pad. It’s comfortable, but I do find it tends to grab clothing when shouldering the gun.
I had a chance to try the shotgun out at the range today. I’m generally pleased with the results—the pistol grip’s texture provided excellent grip despite my hands being greasy with sweat and sunscreen, and the butt pad made shooting heavy recoiling buckshot and slugs quite tolerable—my shoulder didn’t have the usual ache after a range day with a 12 gauge. I didn’t notice any extra impact from the pistol grip into my shooting hand, like I’d experienced with pistol-gripped stocks like the Speedfeed IV.
I found that the cheek weld might be a little high, with caused me to point a little high…I will need to focus on bearing down. There was no “cheek slap” with the stock, either, so that was nice—it’s quite forgiving. I did find that my thumb bumped my nose slightly on a few of the heavy recoiling rounds so I might add another spacer in.
Here’s a video of the gun in action—nine rounds of birdshot to warm up, five buckshot shells, five slugs, then a mix of three birdshot shells and three slugs to compare recoil.
[youtube]hYuTjyEBILk[/youtube]
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