Maverick HS-12

Chuck3436

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Vancouver, BC
Well, I made an impulse buy on one of these gadgets.

Pretty neat little shotgun. Not everyone's cup of tea, but a bit of an oddity for sure. An O/U shotgun that has been somewhat "tactified." It is modeled after the new mossberg O/U hunter line, and is basically a chopped version that has been given a top rail and FO sights.

Initial thoughts. Well its compact, very compact. Its super light, I think coming in around 6 1/4lbs. Length with 18.5" barrels is 35" which is the same as an 870 with 14" barrels. So its short and handles very easily.

Finish is decent, comes with a nice trigger lock and choke tube wrench. Yes, this thing takes chokes!

Safety is standard mossberg tang safety which doubles as a barrel selector to allow firing of either the top or bottom barrel. Also has a strange toe safety that does not allow shooting the gun downwards...to save your toes I suppose. The angle is quite steep I believe less than 30degrees before it engages, so you can shoot the floor a few feet away if you wanted.

[EDIT: I just measured and its roughly 30degrees from vertical pointed downwards that it engages, so you can shoot the ground roughly 3 feet from yourself. This isn't ever really gonna be an issue, can't see any situation where I would need to shoot downwards 2 feet from myself.]

Has decent sights which are a dot over post, the rear rail being grooved to act as the wings on the rear. Front being F/O.

Action new is TIGHT. VERY TIGHT. Right now I'm literally opening it over my knee because its so tight. I'm quite sure it will break in, as the one at the shop opened much easier.

A downfall of this guns is that is has extractors not ejectors. A cost saving move I suppose, but in a touted Home defence shottie, speed is essential and that is a an oversight, especially considering its price point.

One of the great things is that it breaks down into 3 pieces in seconds, the barrel, action and foreend. The longest piece being the receiver/stock which is an amazing 19" in length! You can fit this into a backpack easily without hastle.

Overall pretty neat, I think it would make an excellent backpacker, camp gun or emergency gun. Breaking down into 3 pieces at 19" max length means it can fit into damn near anywhere, backpack, under your seat wherever. The tactical area of this shottie isn't very much, it has 1 rail and is black. Thats about it...it probably would have served them better to NOT call it tactical and market it as a modern o/u or shortie o/u. The stoeger condor outback O/U is nearly the same gun with 20" barrels and rifle sights and its not touting any crazy tactical abilities?

Of course this won't do anything a regular 870 or 590 etc. will do and it carries only 2 rounds to boot. And its price tag at $489 + tax doesn't help its case much. BUT, for what it is, it definately has some fun factor skirting the tactical vs huntical line a bit.

Oh...don't know why, but our Canadian version does not include the front rail for the light?! Not sure why this is. I guess we got the less tactified version.

Some pics:

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Hmmm.... a very interesting shooting iron indeed. I was unaware that there was a "tacticool" version of this O/U. I didn't even know that the regular Mossberg Maverick O/U was available in Canada.

Very nifty indeed. Thanks for the review!
 
Nice review, was thinking about getting one, just because, Have you had it out yet?

Nope, just got it home and wiped off the packing oils...

I am loving the fact that I can break it down and assemble it in under 10seconds right now. Not alot of non-restricted guns can come apart this small thats for sure. Plus its mere seconds of assembly/dissasembly.

Definately gonna be my grouse gun, heck cuz it takes chokes it could actually be alot of things.

Why the heck not.
 
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not a big fan of the toe safety idea.. if i wanna shoot my toes, then thats my choice

Agreed. Something more on it to screw up. It seems as they're trying to replace the rule "Don't point it as something you don't want to destroy" with a mechanical safety, which another rule prevents us from trusting entirely.

I would far rather see this "toe safety" removed and replaced with maybe a booklet with the rules of firearms handling. [Sarcasm, I'm pretty sure those are in the box already. But you get what I mean.]

Here's a thought. It's marketed as one of these "home-defense" types, so what happens if a person needed to shoot it down over a staircase railing? What if you're stand hunting with it and your buck sneaks up nearly below your stand? I realize that these are some kind of "out-there" scenarios, but you don't know if you don't ask, right?
 
I realize this is an OLD post but I wanted to add something to it. The down-angle safety is dead easy to eliminate. (I TAKE NO RESPONSIBILITY IF YOU SHOOT YOURSELF OR SOMETHING ELSE BY ACCIDENT AFTER DOING THIS OR IF YOU DAMAGE YOUR GUN!)

After making the firearm safe, remove the barrel to make this easier. Take off the butt pad and then use a long socket extension to remove the butt from the receiver. This will expose the trigger mechanism. If you tilt the gun forward you will see the safety sear fall forward and block the trigger. You can do one of two things. The easy but possibly problematic route is to use JB Weld or similar to glue the sear in the down position so it can't ever fall forward again. The harder but probably better way is to remove one of the hammer springs (pops out under tension) and then punch out the safety sear pin that holds it in place. Then drop the sear out and reinstall the hammer spring.

My own experience with this firearm however is that you pretty much have to be pointing it down at your foot for the safety sear to trip on. I have had ZERO problems doing dry fire testing pointing down the stairs. Someone said you'd have problems covering a bad guy on the ground... but to that end I'd say you'd have to be standing WAY TOO CLOSE to him/her!
 
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Still my favorite shotgun, not that I've owned or shot a lot. As a matter of fact I took it out again last week just because and I even have a beautiful Fabarm I've never even fired lol.

The place I have been shooting I like to walk around with the dog and just randomly shoot a bit. I don't blast a lot of rounds in a stationary place so the loading of 1 or 2 shots is nice and LOVE the fact it doesn't have ejectors cause it's not my property and I don't want to bend down and pick up shells all the time.
 
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