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mossburg 930


benny hill

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Welcome to the Mossberg 930 Club guys!

I bought a used 930 Home defense last year for $325. Added a Choate tube and bolt handle and have been very pleased. Mossberg told me early on that i could order a 24" VR barrel direct from the factory without the ports. I have not done so yet. The 18.5" has worked so far and easily cleared the plates and poppers at the Arkansas Section MG Championship this past weak end. I did have one problem with a failure to completely cycle but i think it was my fault. The bead sight did suck but i picked up an Advantage Tactical clamp on at the NM High Desert Classic this year. It too works very well.

I RO'ed the AR3G match and saw only one other 930. He had a 24" VR barrel that came from OFM direct. He also said he likes his gun and had no problems.

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So what were the problems with the SPX model?

The front sight was attached to the barrel outside of OFM. The barrels weren't properly place in the jig and many of them were canted. It ate up all the adjustment in the rear sight.

OFM included NO documentation on the sights and their use. A ton of people were never even aware that the front sight could be adjusted. So there were a lot of complaints about POI issues. There was also enough tolerance differences between the sights, the barrel, the receiver, and the rail that some people would have this issue and others didn't. Mossberg came out with a 2nd and then a 3rd generation of front sight to fix the POI/POA issue.

There are two screw lengths that hold the rail to the receiver. Sometimes the wrong screw was used, which caused the screw to bottom out on the bolt and cause problems.

The screws were on occassion over-torqued, resulting in stripped out receivers. Buyers would have rail screws fall out when the shotgun was turned over.

The forearm retain was sometimes shipped broken. When the shotgunw as taken down for initial cleaning the parts would fall out.

The shotgun could be unforgiving with lighter loads. As the SPX was intended to be a defensive gun, it was really meant for defensive loads. Ways around that were to break it in by shooting heavier loads at first, staying about 1250 fps.

Some guns had FCGs that didn't sit properly in the receiver, which caused feeding problems.

Choate supplies the extensions assemblies. People have had problems with mag tube springs that were too long, causing the last round loaded to be so tightly wedged into the magazine that it would not release. This same problem showed up in the aftermarket kits that Choate was selling independently. The springs for these extensions were usually 35-40" long. The springs should be in the 25-28" range. Some extension were bent, some had rough transition areas that hung the followers up.

The shotgun doesn't require a lot of lube to run, although the longer you shoot it the slower the bolt gets. This is a rather noticeable decrease in bolt speed if you're paying attention. Usually you can lock the bolt to the rear, squirt lube in the receiver and onto the outside of the bolt body, operate the bolt manually a few times and it will operate normally again.

That's pretty much the issue mechanically with the SPX, and most particularly the early production models.

On the CS side, you had a nightmare resulting from the mechanical problems that should have been caught before the shotgun ever left, a rush to produce shotguns that were in such demand that they were very hard to find, a huge gun rush in the years of 07-08, and a CS department that either wasn't clued in to what was going on or just didn't handle it well. They frequently treated known issues that were making the 930 SPX infamous as thought hey had just heard about them. They would require the entire shotgun to be shipped back, frequently on the owner's dime to replace the whole barrel because fo the front sight issue. They complicated this be frequently shipping out a brand new barrel with a front sight that had the exact same cant problem as the first barrel. On top of that, because of the large number of SPX models that had this problem, the CS department was gettign swamped with returns. They didn't answer calls or emails, didn't respond, and if someone was lucky enough to make it through they rarely spoke with the same person and had to start all over.

That's just off the top of my head. There were a few other issues of lesser frequency and importance.

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Heck I have e:mailed Mossberg 3 time in the last couples of week and no reply. Right now they are not at the top of my list. Just waiting to see if the guys here who are working the non-ported barrel angle make it happen and then hope to jump on that band wagon.

I finally did get over being pissed and shot my brand new 930 waterfowler hell of a gun. Anybody got some contact info on a person up the food chain at Mossberg.

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Just to ask you guys, I have the 930 with the 18.5" non ported barrel, what would be the problem with having that threaded and using that in a competition?

Also, Just so you guys know, Mossberg does offer a pistol grip buttstock for these, its part number is: SKU#19002 (PG STOCK(INC.PAD&SCREWS)$74.00 PLUS $8.95

It looks like this when it is attached: IMG_20101019_183248.jpg

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I see a lot of pistol grip Saigas in open, my thought is better recoil control, same wrist angle as an AR keeps things simple.

For me a field stock is easier to hit moving/flying targets but a Pistol Grip is easier to hit stationary targets. Everything is a compromise.

why would anyone want a pistol grip on a mossburg.????? and a specially for competition.

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why would anyone want a pistol grip on a mossburg.????? and a specially for competition.

Because they don't want to be able to use the safety??

That is my only gripe with that stock. I can control the gun much better with that stock than I could the standard one while shooting quickly. I am investigating a way to enlarge the safety for easier support hand access while shouldering...

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they do have bigger safeties but. you would need 1 the size of a saucer to reach it with your thumb .LOL

a local police department got them with their pumps . at first they had no idea what I was talking about , but after I explained in children's terms , they reply was who needs a safety. serve and maybe protect if the safety is off .LOL

Edited by 1911vm
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You probably could modify the safety to a lever on the side of the reciever. The safety on a mossberg is very rudimentary. Probably could fab something up that would work similarly to an AR safety.

That is pretty much what I was thinking about doing...

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This is an ETA safety (left) next to a Vang safety (right). The ETA is big, but I don't know if it would be wide enough to offset the reach that you would have to do to engage it.

safetycompro.jpg

Here is the ETA safety installed.

safetyup.jpg

The Cav Arms safety is HUGE. It is made to work with the PG stocks, particularly the M4 style. The center of the safety has a clearance slot that is cut to fit under a Pic rail, and then the wings of the safety extend to the sides from that. It is hard to understand how big it is just seeing a picture of it unless you understand that that slot in the center is just abotu the size of a 1913 spec rail.

It is significantly wider than the ETA model above.

One way around the safety issue that I've seen some use is to rotate their trigger finger up from the trigger to the safety and manipulate it that way, rather than using their thumb.

Edited by m24shooter
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This is an ETA safety (left) next to a Vang safety (right). The ETA is big, but I don't know if it would be wide enough to offset the reach that you would have to do to engage it.

safetycompro.jpg

Here is the ETA safety installed.

safetyup.jpg

The Cav Arms safety is HUGE. It is made to work with the PG stocks, particularly the M4 style. The center of the safety has a clearance slot that is cut to fit under a Pic rail, and then the wings of the safety extend to the sides from that. It is hard to understand how big it is just seeing a picture of it unless you understand that that slot in the center is just abotu the size of a 1913 spec rail.

It is significantly wider than the ETA model above.

One way around the safety issue that I've seen some use is to rotate their trigger finger up from the trigger to the safety and manipulate it that way, rather than using their thumb.

Might be workable/preferable to just use your weak hand to swipe off the safety.....haven't tried it but just a thought?

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The ETA is a very nice safety. The Vang is larger than the OFM A1 safety, but just barely. The ETA is significantly larger, and slightly taller. If you want to position your thumb farther to the sides that's the safety for you. The Vang is probably preferred if you like the factory safety but just want something slightly larger, and you keep your thumb more along the centerline.

I like them both, but I've let some other people shoot my 930 with the ETA and they felt it was just a little too wide.

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