Remington 870 vs Mossberg 500: Battle of the cheap shotguns

it's a great fun video so I have shot the Remington 870 since I was a teenager I does the shotgun has always had spent a lot of time with this thing and you I own the Mossberg 500 now this is the Flex model but I've owned this for several years now and this is what I take out shooting so as to owners of the two most popular cheap shotguns that you'll just find everywhere except during a pandemic apparently we're gonna review them and talk about the things that we like and don't like so we went out to the range and we switched guns I took the Mossberg you took the 870 yeah and we were able to notice some of the peculiarities so I'm not gonna bury the lede for me this is the number one thing that I have a problem with the Mossberg 500 is this when I put my hand comfortably on the grip and I reach to that trigger it is a far beach to get there I have pretty normal sized hands yeah um and I really just barely at least you're saying it for me I have pretty good big cans and still the same for me now we don't know if that's because it's the Flex model and the stock the mechanism in there the Flex model basically allows me to change out the stock the the pump everything without any tools and so it has this little thing gonna build into the stock and I'm not sure if that's adding space here if it is that would be the cause but if you're yeah if you're if you're looking between the two and you're gonna and you decide on a Mossberg make sure that you go check that like you should have a nice almost 90 degree and that's what I have here very comfortably very easily and you should be able to have that so make sure you check that on whichever gun that's my biggest beef with the Mossberg what's your biggest beef with the 87 my biggest beef with again this particular gun is the action it sticks a lot it does I noticed that many times I take a shot and then you gotta have to jerk it real good and you told me I mean you've you've greased the thing up you've cleaned it you've done everything and for some reason the action on this thing and it's important to note this is an old gun yes it's not really needing to be broken in hundreds or thousands of rounds through this and still it sticks and that's not that's not unique to this copy of it right the Remington 870 one of the ways that they're making it cheap is that they're not doing all of the polishing that they really should do that all that little tiny oh yeah you get the wing master and stuff and they're gonna start doing it and it does just stick and it's not just this one I've talked to lots of 870 owners and maybe not all of them but many 870 owners say hi does just jam you got it I get some jeweler's polish and get through and you can't fix it but you shouldn't have to on a new gun even if it's cheap yeah now other than that there are some really specific distinct differences between the two but most of the normal things about shooting these two guns they are basically the same gun there I mean there's just not a lot of differences they're both extremely customizable there are a lot of different options you can get both of these in tactical you can get I mean there's a dozens of different options for each one they're both solid good guns at about the same price point but there are a few distinctions between the two that are mostly a matter of preference which one you're gonna like better yeah to me the biggest one the thing that I liked about the Mossberg is the weight you feel the difference between these two even this is obviously a wood stock but even we compared the synthetic stocks the Mossberg is substantially lighter because it doesn't have a steel receiver and so it's going to save quite a bit of weight and that's nice except for a lighter gun is gonna kick more right yeah it's not soaking up as much wrong because what we found shooting it is like the real coil felt the same and it's because the butt pad on the 870 might as well be made of brick rubber but it has zero give whatsoever it's like one of those Moses aunts where they had a steel but yeah this thing has a squishy and and that's a normal butt pad on the Mossberg 500 there are I mean again this is the flex so I can just pop it off easily enough and there are various options but you can remove and replace that on any one of them and this is just kind of the average one and it's much softer and who doesn't want a squishy butt exactly the other thing I noticed on this particular barrel again this varies based on the barrel but this barrel does have relief up here that is helping it is helping with that recoil quite a bit as well yeah between those two things I could not tell a noticeable difference between the recoil on the two guns despite the fact that this is much lighter yeah it was a big difference and easy to replace a butt pad but still you'd hope you don't have to yeah one thing that doesn't annoy me on the Mossberg 500 is they always put this guide bead here you know you have your main bead that you're citing off of and then they have this a little side one I get it I get why you would have it you know just helps further alignment right but I just have never had the problem that my rail is sideways when I'm shooting and so to me it's just visual clutter yeah I'm really trying to focus on the clay and not anything on there I get that I have had the problem where for me on the shot my rails not off sideways but it's off up and down so I don't realize that I'm not looking flat on the rail I know that's maybe just an amateur mistake and so it is kind of a nice thing as a beginner to be able to just say oh I just kind of lined those two up and get used to that muscle memory yeah realistically you've just got to look down the barrel and it's fine right to me that actually harms it because of that visual clutter if I just don't see rail I'm doing it right anyway just preference but other things that are definitely different um then these are definitely a matter of preference the safety on the Mossberg 500 they have the Tang style safety which is up here on the top that's what that means I prefer that I like that I can see it when I'm looking down I can see the red there I know that it's fire also ambidextrous lis either hand I can switch it on and off from the firing position as opposed to needing to oh I just took a shot I'm gonna turn the safety on the other thing that's different is the action release here on the Remington it's up here in front of the trigger you can see it right there on the Mossberg gets here behind what I like about that is even from this position I can just move my I can keep my trigger finger out I can just move my middle finger on it and I can mm-hmm cycle the action yeah I I think both of those things are better on the Mossberg I like the position of the safety a tang safety is the most intuitive you hand somebody a gun who's never used one they get it yeah this style of safety people you kind of got I mean it's not hard at all it's not hard but I'm just thinking for somebody who goes just goes to the store and just buys it who has no training in a gun I want it to be as simple as possible yeah so they don't get hurt okay so that I like the position of the safety better I bet a like the position of the release better so in terms of ergonomics in that do that sense I like the Mossberg one other thing though that for me wins out on the Remington is the magazine tube right this is a tube where you could store extra rounds right and I can fill this thing up but the magazine tube the end the cap here it's threaded on the inside of the tube and so if I wanted to extend this I have to replace the entire tube where as you can see with the Remington it's threaded on the outside of the tube so you can actually just purchase a tube extender add some length to it and have a few more rounds with this one you have to buy a longer tube and because of the way the barrel attaches you have to buy a replacement barrel as well that has the attachment further out so there's substantially more cost involved in being able to extend that so again if you're gonna buy the Mossberg buy one with as many with the capacity that you want because customizing that is more work obviously you can do it you can buy tubes for it but with the Remington you could start with this and if you want to down the road just to add a little extension on there no problem another small thing is the extractor is much easier to replace on the Mossberg than the 870 because it's either welded or riveted in there yeah with this one it's just a screw you unscrew it replace the extractor I don't hear those won't go out frequently frequently but it's something yeah but you'd have to take it to a gunsmith I could just do it myself yes in addition to the Remington sticking the other sticking point see what I did there that I have with the 870 is the metal rusts so easily it's crazy so many times I have taken care of this thing it I've done whatever I need to and you come back to it and there's just this light rust on the barrel and it's fine but you want your guns well taken care of I'm kind of a guy who just wants everything either stainless or Sarah coated so I just don't ever have to think of it but even taking care of this thing man it rests near us easily I've seen that on more than one Remington gun I they're blowing process I don't think is adequate and so that's one thing I don't like so Mossberg 500 or Remington 870 I have been a long time 870 user and I'm converted if I were buying today I'd get the Mossberg 500 come on and I I'd stick with the 500 that I have again if you're gonna go by the 500 just actually go put your finger on it hold it up put your hand on it where it's gonna be comfortable and check that distance of the trigger I'm halfway through my index finger just to touch it I have just gotten used to that on my shotgun but that will affair will affect your shooting so so that to me even would be to the point of a deal-breaker but I do think it's gonna be because of this flex we tried to go find other versions so that we can compare it and we couldn't find one in stock really yeah pump shotguns are sold out these days we have lots of videos on shotguns especially a shotgun basics video if you're a total beginner you know how to hit a clay all those kind of videos so check out so subscribe to backfire and YouTube will use the power of AI to push videos that we have made similar to this one into your feet over the next few weeks

Channel: Backfire

Views: 87,898

Rating: 4.8688984 out of 5

Keywords: shotgun, remington 870, mossberg 500, beginner shotgun, shotgun choice, shotgun buyer's guide

Id: y0KuJGSEcMs

Length: 10min 59sec (659 seconds)

Published: Sat May 30 2020