The new Top Gun Movie “Maverick” recently came out. A lot of viewers have also been asking for super cheap pumps: So in honor of the circumstances at hand, we are looking at the dirt-cheap Maverick 88 shotgun by Mossberg
In this article
Maverick 88 by Mossberg
This may be the cheapest shotgun I’ve ever shot with an MSRP of $253 – I got mine for EVEN LESS than that at Reeds Sports
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QUICK SPECS
- 12 gauge (Pump Action)
- 3″ chamber
- 28″ Barrel
- 7lbs
- Length of Pull 14 1/4″
- Drop at Comb (N/A)
- Drop at Heel (N/A)
- Comes with 1 choke (extra full)
TRIGGER
- 8lbs 0.9oz (Average pull weight)
- Not great…That’s all I got
- This trigger was chunky AND heavy and I cannot wait to speed shoot this thing..
ERGONOMICS
- The first thing I noticed was that the slide was pretty far forward for my arm size.
- Not to mention the slide itself was pretty shaky and slippery
- This gun was front-end heavy as most pump actions are – this Maverick was pretty excessive though
- The safety on this gun almost looked like it should be on a toy gun (lol) very small and cheap
- The slide release was actually conveniently located
- The recoil pad didn’t feel all that bad! Very generic
- Brass mid-bead and ivory bead on the front
- Overall this is a very average build – cheap polymer all around with absolutely nothing fancy
- I noticed the loading port edges are very sharp
- These are just my observations – we’re obviously not going to be getting all the smooth-edged bells and whistles with a gun this cheap
Breakdown/Quality of Build
- The breakdown of this pump was so much harder than I would have expected for such a cheap basic pump gun
- I also noticed that the trigger pins came out very easy – like scary easy
- Once I got all the moving parts taken out, you can just see that a lot of shooting with this gun is going to wear down those parts in no time
- There were a lot of moving parts as well – as far as quality I’d like to think that it could be a simpler design. It’s what you’d expect though
- With the barrel off, the rest of the gun felt very light
RECOIL/RELIABILITY
- Recoil is one unfortunate downside of pump shotguns. Let alone cheap pumps. These target loads got me in the face for sure!
- Part of this felt recoil may be because the gun is too short for me – gun fit is important!
- The slide was tough to run – even at slower speeds back to back shots just wouldn’t cycle consistently
- Even though I was getting kicked with recoil, I was surprised – the weight, the material, a pump-action, the added recoil makes sense
- Recoil is sometimes relative to gun fit so you may experience recoil different than me – OR you could invest in a recoil reduction pad like a Falcon Strike
- I haven’t had this gun long enough to truly test its “Reliability” It shot fine for this review – If you have this gun, let me know how it’s holding up!
SPEED SHOOTING
- I was able to accomplish shooting 3 hand thrown clays in 1.61 seconds
In summary, I think the new Top Gun movie was great. However, after shooting this gun, I’m not sure Maverick and Top Gun belong in the same sentence. This is a pretty bottom-of-the-barrel. If you’re looking for a cheap option and don’t mind tanking through the pain and possible hick-ups of this Maverick, then go for it. If you are a parent looking for the cheap option to get your child a gun, DONT go for it. As far as ultra-affordable guns though, this wouldn’t be my first option. This is just my opinion! Do as you wish partner 🙂
Whether our targets in the field or our targets in life, we will only hit what we are focused on so live the #targetfocusedlife
Stay Target Focused,
Steve
