Bolt action shotgun

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My step dad has an old Higgins .410 bore bolt action. My mom was looking through his guns while we was out of town on business and wanted something she could use for home defense. Based on the guns available, ranging from a Ruger single six .22lr/.22mag, to an older than God Remington 12 gauge, we decided to go with the Remington 1100 20gauge. The bolt action .410 was unrelaible in feeding and chambering the shell. It could have been the case that it hadn't been cleaned or oiled in forty years, too. But I wasn't impressed.
 
Have not fired it. Can't give you a reason other than the SAs, the levers, and the M97:rolleyes: usually goes first. Then the DW Pug. And/or the National Match or...................

This post may get it out of the safe. The Mauser shot gun was called the "brush gun" (Bürsten Sie Gewehr). They could not make rifles following WWII so they used the Mauser action. Cannot believe a Mauser would be unsafe. String and a fat tree comes to mind.
 
Yup that's what mine was, it had a different stock than the 98ks. It looked like it was made from scratch, snabel, panel flats on action, like commercial Mauser stock. even a Bavarian kind of a cheek piece. Check the mod to the front of the bolt to accept shells. Scarey. Thought about tying it to a tire, but my cousin talked me out of it. And sold it on Gun Broker.
 
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heeler said:
Sleazy,which model Marlin 55 is that?
I know they made three different ones.
A friend of mine Dad's had a 36 inch barreled goose gun and I knew another guy that had the model 55 Swamp Gun which is fairly rare.
And I have seen several of the adjustable choke model 55's with 26-28 inch barrels.
Click to expand...
I'm not sure. It isn't the 3-inch magnum model, as it only holds 2 3/4 inch shells, so I guess it isn't the goose gun. It doesn't have adjustable chokes. Any ideas?
 
SleazyRider: It might be so old/early in the series that it is a "goose gun". When I was a kid, the manufacturers all produced both 2 3/4 and 3 in guns. In the 60s, you paid a premium to have a 3 in model. Some famous guns weren't produced in 3 in at all. Maybe that's your case. It might not be the "official" proclaimed "Goose Gun", but was its immediate ancestor.

My experience has been with the Box magazine bolt guns. Had a .410 Mossberg (183 K had the separate Modified and Full Choke tubes). It only fed well with one round in the mag. Think the 20's were the bolt action shotgun high point. Plenty of hitting power, seemed to feed smoothly, and are light and slim enough to be alive when shooting them.
 
Sleazy,depending on the model 55 some had the adjustable chokes and some were a fixed choke.
There will be no doubt if it's the Goose Gun as they came with 36 inch barrels.
They must be the longest shotgun ever made.
If not it's just one of the variations of model 55 they produced.
And although Mossberg never had the Goose Gun variation of bolt action they did,just like Marlin, produce shotguns with the adjustable chokes and a cheaper line with the fixed choke.
 
I shot some of them over the years. Lots of Farmers in the Delta cut them down and used them for Farm truck guns along with some single shots. My late Great Uncle had a full sized one that he would use to take rabbits , squirrels and quail on his farm. IMO they are solid and useful but not very eye pleasing. I see them used for Cheap here in TX.
 
Heeler, They made a Marlin bolt action in 10ga. I think it was the Super Goose. It was 36" barrel. I dont know if it was longer than the 55 goose.
I would like to have a 55 swamp,too.
 
Yeah, I watched the neighbor kid, across the road, walk up a waterway, in a milo patch.
Only way I could tell it was him I could see his truck up on the road, Any way, freezing rain, he shoots twice walks up to the truck with 3 snows! 10 Ga.
 
For a while, I was seeing finish worn bolt shotguns cheap at the gun show, and thought about buying one, shortening the barrel to 18", and cutting the stock short to make a cheap trunk gun.
I never buy firearms at Gander Mountain, or anything really, due to their prices...but I do look around there sometimes.
A year or so ago, I had a break from a job I was doing near a Gander Mountain...On the used rack on the sales floor, I find a Mossberg 12ga bolt gun...I look at the price tag...
$65!!!...It looked like it was brand new! Complete with adjusta-choke.
So I buy it...as I'm walking away, I hear one employee tell another "I told you somebody would buy it at that price..."
It seriously looks brand new. Can use 2 3/4 or 3" shells. I found I had to adjust the feedlips on the mag to get it to feed.
I just keep it for a spare...And my plan to make a truck gun? Can't do it...it is just too nice to butcher.
I would like to cut one down someday, though...make a PGO shotgun, just to make the PGO HATERS howl...a PGO bolt action shotgun would give them nightmares.
 
I think 60 or 65 was what I gave for the Mossberg 410 bolt @ Gander!
and mines too pretty to hack on also. Fixed Full tho.

Makes me wonder though does it seem like they are either beat til theres nothing left or Mint ,Built yesterday condition. wadaya think?
 

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I think I'm going to hold on to my 36-inch barreled wonder, and wait for the day when all of these shotguns have all been cut down and otherwise bubbafied. Then I will have the last remaining one, and I'll sell it and buy a Colt Python with the proceeds.

At least that's my plan.
 
I kind a forgot about this until you guys started talking about the Long Toms. When I worked in this gunshop in NW Missouri, we had a couple of old guys, I think Amish? don't know. But they would cruise thru ever so often and buy the long 12s bolt actions.
After 3 or 4 I got up the gumption to ask what they were doing with them.
And he said "Wulf Gun".... I don't know what he meant by that. Coyotes? What?

Hey, isn't that what Lupara means. Kind a went the other way with that!
 
When I was 15 my best friend and I both were into hunting and shooting. That Christmas we campaigned pretty heavily for shotguns. As it turned out he got a Winchester pump 12 gauge, and I got a a Mossberg bolt action 3-shot, 20 gauge. I was highly disappointed, but glad to have a shotgun. Within a few years, and shortly after getting a job, I purchased a Winchester 12 gauge pump gun...and still have it. The Mossberg was generally a poor quality and rough finish, and rediculous to try to cycle the action while dove or duck hunting. As a result the Mossberg was sold at a gun show many years ago. An i still scoff when I see them at gun shows today. What a piece of complete junk, IMO.
 
It's too bad you feel that way:( I always keep guns that are given to me as gifts.

I would have been thrilled with any repeater, much less new.


Picture of mine in post #39.

Scoffing is good too. Helps keep the price down on them.;)
 
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Mossberg made those bolt shotguns in one form or another until around 1986.
I can assure you both my 385 20 gauge and short kept 395 12 gauge were not poorly made and you could cycle that bolt pretty fast.
In truth they were a good small game and plinking shotgun for their day.
Certainly no 870 or Browning Citori but still well made guns and at a working persons wage of that day.
I know in 1973 I was making about $3.95 an hour and that was in a union factory job.
So that sub $60.00 Mossberg was just the ticket and K-Mart was right around the corner.
 
Heeler;
Indeed. Those bolt shotguns were inexpensive-as-simple but well made guns. A repeater that cost almost the same as one of those awful single-shot break actions that were everywhere when I was still too young to drive. That C-lect adjustable choke made the thing universally useful.

But, you can goof. I was so enamored I bought my nice 20 ga. used and spent almost as much on the replacement stock if I recall correctly -- lol. And convinced my buddy of their usefullness. So he bought one as his first gun. Sorta. He ended up with the same almost useless Marlin the OP mentions...

It was a 36" barreled fixed Full choke 12 ga. It was their Goose Gun that was also everywhere at the time. I asked him what the heck he was gonna do with that. He defended it. I urged him to sell it before he scratched it and get something useful. I assured him he was never gonna fire it. As far as I know he never did. His inexpensive Rossi (?) 12 ga. SxS Coach Gun might have seen a little use but even that was a novelty.

I've learned that most people have no idea what they are doing, or why, with regards to guns, but will defend what they have spent money on or want to believe till they are blue in the face without a fact or experience.
 
I'm a Browning guy. I like em, Can't always afford em, but I like em. But on a different level the FACT(to be ignored later) is you can buy 10 bolt action shotgun to 1 used Citori. used price @ $700. Each one capable of doing the same things heck they even hold 1 more shell.

If the gun is broken it is no different than any other broken gun.
If it's not, what could possibly be harder about operating it , than a bolt action rifle!

I mean if ya can't , ya can't but I would try to keep it a secret.;)
 
One would consider a bolt shotgun junk when going from it to a Winchester 12,,,
Poor people out in the back country who can/could only afford a bolt gun as a repeater option think they are pretty darned good.
 
My dad was raised far back in the mountains. Nobody liked bolt action shotguns in that neighborhood. Well it was a hollow, but I digress. My uncle traded into a armload of guns one day that included a .410 bolt shotgun, but the sucker would throw the bolt over your shoulder if you weren't careful. And it shot terrible patterns, too. It was my first shotgun. For about a week; I was too little to pick it up and shoulder it.

John
 
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