New Stock for my Mossberg 500

Like millions of other Americans, I keep a 12 gauge shotgun for home defense. In my case, it's a Mossberg 500 Mariner. It's basically a regular 18.5" barreled Mossberg 500 but with an electroless nickel finish on the metal and it came with black plastic furniture.

Several years ago I replaced the too-long factory stock with a Hogue youth-sized stock, giving it a 12" length of pull. Even though I'm only about 5'5" tall that was too short to shoot comfortably, so I added a Kick-Eze slip-on recoil pad to add another inch or so. That wasn't ideal because it just didn't feel solid.

So, last week I replaced the Hogue with a Magpul SGA, which is adjustable via adding or removing spacers. I set it up for a 13.5" LOP.

The pistol grip section is more vertical than either the factory or Hogue stock, but it's comfortable for me. I was initially concerned that the comb was a bit too high but after shooting the gun with the new stock, it's not.

Last weekend I was camping on private property where I had the chance to shoot it with a couple different loads. First were a few Herter's buck and ball (a single .650 ball plus six No.1 buckshot) from Cabela's. Second were some Remington 00 buck that I bought years ago at Walmart.

Both were high-brass 1300 FPS 2.75" loads, and of course they kick quite a bit. The Magpul's recoil pad made them bearable for a few rounds.

At home, the Mossberg is kept ready with Federal reduced recoil 00 buck featuring Flite Control wads. They are a lot more pleasant to shoot and will be plenty effective in the unfortunate event I ever need to use it.

No doubt someone reading this will wonder why I'm using a shotgun for home defense in 2022 instead of a pistol caliber carbine or an AR-15. Shotguns remain highly effective defensive arms to this day. Greg Ellefretz has a recent post that mirrors my thoughts on the matter.

You'll note from the picture that my shotgun lacks a light, red dot, laser, sling, or curb feelers. IMO, home defense shotguns should be kept as slick as possible. It's been awhile but I've shot in multigun matches and my shotgun with a simple bead was always at least as fast as guns with ghost rings or optics. (Read Ellefretz's article on why I don't have a sling or light on it. I might add a light, but in the house a sling has too much potential for getting caught on something, IMO.)

Yes, it kicks a lot and doesn't carry a lot of ammo. But the Mossberg is light, handy, reliable, fast on target, and the terminal ballistics are basically unmatched at the range I would need it at.  I live in white bread suburbia, not a war zone.

As Ellefretz notes, it's extremely uncommon for someone defending his home with a shotgun to need to reload in a fight. That said, I had an elastic butt cuff with 5 spare rounds on it on the stock. I am replacing that with an Esstac 4-round card. That will allow me to grab the shotgun have nine rounds of GTFO in/on the gun.

One thing I found interesting during the early days of the pandemic was that aside from all the military-style rifles and handguns that sold out, so did fighting shotguns. Americans get combat shotguns more than most other people.

As an aside, when I got the Mossberg I sometimes ran into sticky extraction. I did some online searching and found that I wasn't the only Mossberg Mariner owner to experience this. I resolved the issue by polishing the chamber with some Flitz metal polish on a cleaning patch wrapped around a 12 gauge bore brush, chucked in an electric drill. Since then the function has been flawless.

Edit 3/25/22:

After some more consideration and seeing how it felt, I removed one of the stock spacers, so LOP is now at 13". This enables me to more easily tuck it into my shoulder and will also be helpful if I need to use it while wearing more than a T-shirt.