Mossberg Shockwave + Paul Harrell = Fun Times

In this video, Paul uses a viewer question as the basis for doing some range work with a Mossberg Shockwave short-barreled shotgun.

The viewer, name o’ Maitre Mark, is in a feud and has some very specific questions, as he expects to be attacked by someone with a “sawn-off shotgun” loaded with birdshot while he himself is armed with a sword and protected by a one-and-one-half-inch shield of MDF particle board. He wants to know what sort of pattern size to expect, and whether he can expect any sort of protection from his MDF “shield.”

Paul begins by comparing muzzle velocities from a full-sized shotgun with 20.5-inch barrel to those from a Mossberg Shockwave (14.375″ barrel) , to see whether there’s any power loss due to the shorter barrel resulting in reduced powder burn time.

Naturally, there was some power loss. The odd thing is, there was much more loss with buckshot (-185 fps) than with birdshot (-76 fps).

Pattern comparison comes next, with both scatterguns producing very similar patterns. This is notable, because he says the full-length Mossberg 500 he’s using has an improved cylinder choke, which is nominally tighter than the cylinder bore choke of the shorter-barreled 590 Shockwave.

Next comes the meat target at 20 meters, to which there was some damage, but not a whole lot.

The next test is shooting at three 1/2″ sheets of MDF board. At 20 meters, the soda jugs representing YOU fared quite well, as they did at 10 meters. At 5, though, the jugs got clobbered pretty hard — mainly by hunks of MDF.

This is followed by MDF shield testing with a 38 special and 12 gauge buckshot, with somewhat surprising results.

Enjoy the video.

Russ Chastain

Editor & Contributing Writer Russ Chastain is a lifelong hunter and shooter who has spent his life learning about hunting, shooting, guns, ammunition, gunsmithing, reloading, and bullet casting. He started toting his own gun in the woods at age nine and he's pursued deer with rifles since 1982, so his hunting knowledge has been growing for more than three and a half decades. His desire and ability to share this knowledge with others has also grown, and Russ has been professionally writing and editing original hunting & shooting content since 1998. Russ Chastain has a passion for sharing accurate, honest, interesting hunting & shooting knowledge and stories with people of all skill levels.