Curious on peoples take/peoples experience with pistol grip shotguns. Any information will help, I’m looking for…
I’m specifically interested in the mossberg 88 cruiser 12ga, for tight quarter home defense, or a “truck gun”.
Thank you for your time.
I prefer the “tactical” grip. I like a vertical pistol grip, with a butt stock. As far as the Cruiser style goes, I guess it’s ok for extreme close quarters. If I was going that route, I’d opt for the “chainsaw” for-end for better 2 hand control.
I am not a shotgun person by any stretch of the imagination. I prefer hand guns for in the home defense and rifles for outside. I do have rifles with a pistol grip and a standard grip and really don’t prefer one over the other. Though I assume it would be a bit of an advantage with a hard kicking shotgun without a stock to brace against your shoulder? Personally I would rather have a shoulder stock on a shotgun for better control.
Search box-o-truth. Hes got an excellent write up on the subject. Mine have full stocks.
The Mossberg, or Mav 88 is a good shotgun. I decided to go with a shotgun with a short, but traditional stock.
There are some excellent reviews out there on them if you go looking. They are a specialist type weapon, and do take quite a bit of practice to wield well. With full house loads like buckshot, they are a handful (literally). That recoil is also directed into a single hand/arm.
I think of them as sort of the derringer of the shotgun world. Effective for what it is.
I can only give input on a Remington 870. I put a Kicklite stock on my daughter’s for her home defense. It’s got a pistol grip and 6 position stock that has a spring that absorbs shock. No complaints from her and none from me; it installs quickly and works amazingly well and is nice as it can be adjusted in about 2 seconds to fit her at 5’6" or me at 6’1". The kick reduction seems to reduce it by about 50% or so…I can’t measure it by anything but feeling the comparison between it and another 870.
My opinion, I don’t care for a pistol grip on a shotgun. I think there junk. I have a standard butt stock.
Standard stock for me recoil never bothered me however I’m curious about pistol grip 12s. More recoil on the hand or stock or spread out between the two.
I carried a 12" 870 breacher pistol grip shotgun down range when I was doing that kind of thing. The front hand strap worked best if it was OVER the barrel but you couldn’t reload from that position to hit a 3 hinge door. The best bet was to stick your hand all the way though the strap and grab the top of the barrel when you let it go and use your wrist to load between hinge 1-2 and 2 -3. Not great but it worked. The gun is not controllable from a pistol grip alone.
IMHO the best thing a pistol grip on a 12ga does is keep the back side of your thumb away from your nose and allows you to pull it in tighter to your shoulder as part of a stock other than that it’s pretty much worthless. That being said those two things are worth serious consideration with a stock.
Cheers,
Craig6
I put a pistol grip on my Mossberg 88 fairly recent and love it. No issues, simple as unscrewing the factory stock and installing the pistol grip.
Have you ever used the pistol grip w/o the stock? If so, what was your experience?
@DeeB Some experience’s of other people. 
Pistol grip shotguns require hand and arm strength and lots of practice. 
A good short vid on do’s and don’ts.
I grew up shooting 12 gauge shotguns A LOT. I like them very much, but a pistol-grip shotgun is just this side of useless as a fighting arm AFAIC. I worked in a number of venues during my 28 years in LE, and none of them could have been enhanced via use of a pistol-grip shotgun.
