Mossberg Hushpower 12g Moderator Cover

[Mr. Gain]

Ewen,

thanks for the suggestion. I'd be up for some factory stuff, even though I load my own, but I doubt I'd shoot 50 a year at foxes, so it'd be hard to justify buying in more than 500 rounds, and 250 - still 5 years' supply! - would be more realistic.

All the same, it would be nice if we found there were 40 or so fox-shooting Hushpower owners on the BBS and could get an order in!

As for loading your own, unless you take the Lee Load-All route -on which opinions are divided- the set-up costs are around £200 for a MEC press and a universal charge bar (handier IMO than using bushings). The best place to go for tools and components is www.claygame.co.uk.

[darren m]

mr G did you have any success making/loading your own carts.

also - can you buy just the moderaterd barrel , who do you have to order the whole gun.

thanks

[neumo]

Great thread, as I have just picked up a 12G Pedretti Hushpower; it's so quiet with Ely no 6 subs, which is proving very usefull on a couiple of my shoots. I would also be up some heavier loads for Crows or Mr Fox if we can get enough people togeather to get an order togeather.

I will measure up my Huspower tommorow & will be sending a PM to William, as I need one of those covers, now that they are getting trendy...

[Tony.T]

Having just bought a Baikal Stealth (410 calibre) I'm very interested in reloading for it to get the best out of it. I may also want a moddy cover for it.....

Any help gratefully accepted ref reloading, anyone want to sell tools/ presses etc?

[Mr. Gain]

Glad to see this thread is still of interest.

Darren,

the home-loads are working well now. The cartridges are throwing consistently good patterns of #4 out to 40m, and most of the time they'll do the job at 45m.

I have noticed, however, that penetration is fine on crows and pigeons but less so on rabbits, so I limit myself to 35m for the latter. At that range, the shot typically goes right through the body but stops inside the skin on the far side.

The down side of this is that I don't consider these loads suitable for fox, except perhaps at very close quarters.

On the other hand, I suspect I could still get another 100fps before I go supersonic, so there's still some development potential. Time to get the chronograph out, I guess!

One other issue I've found with the Mossberg is that the chamber is apparently tighter than those on my other shotguns, which means that cases fired in my S/S, O/U and S/A can't be re-used in the Mossberg as the MEC press doesn't resize the heads. This means I have to shoot some factory ammo in the Mossie from time to time to get correctly-sized reloadable hulls. As a result I'm thinking of getting a dedicated resizing tool to enable me to re-use the "oversize" hulls from my other guns.

Another solution would be simply to buy unfired hulls, but I quite like the re-cycling aspect of reloading, and throwing away once-fired hulls now seems positively profligate!

Incidentally, I took my 12g/.243 combi gun out the other day to use up the batch of over-size reloads I made before diagnosing the chamber-size problem. It has a 24" barrel and is a bit "barky" with full-speed loads, but the subsonic carts were still quiet enough to shoot without ear defenders, and they still spooked the wildlife much less than standard cartridges, although I did get the impression that velocity was down a bit compared to the longer barrel on the Mossie.

[sitsinhedges]

Glad to see this thread is still of interest.

Darren,

the home-loads are working well now. The cartridges are throwing consistently good patterns of #4 out to 40m, and most of the time they'll do the job at 45m.

I have noticed, however, that penetration is fine on crows and pigeons but less so on rabbits, so I limit myself to 35m for the latter. At that range, the shot typically goes right through the body but stops inside the skin on the far side.

The down side of this is that I don't consider these loads suitable for fox, except perhaps at very close quarters.

On the other hand, I suspect I could still get another 100fps before I go supersonic, so there's still some development potential. Time to get the chronograph out, I guess!

One other issue I've found with the Mossberg is that the chamber is apparently tighter than those on my other shotguns, which means that cases fired in my S/S, O/U and S/A can't be re-used in the Mossberg as the MEC press doesn't resize the heads. This means I have to shoot some factory ammo in the Mossie from time to time to get correctly-sized reloadable hulls. As a result I'm thinking of getting a dedicated resizing tool to enable me to re-use the "oversize" hulls from my other guns.

Another solution would be simply to buy unfired hulls, but I quite like the re-cycling aspect of reloading, and throwing away once-fired hulls now seems positively profligate!

Incidentally, I took my 12g/.243 combi gun out the other day to use up the batch of over-size reloads I made before diagnosing the chamber-size problem. It has a 24" barrel and is a bit "barky" with full-speed loads, but the subsonic carts were still quiet enough to shoot without ear defenders, and they still spooked the wildlife much less than standard cartridges, although I did get the impression that velocity was down a bit compared to the longer barrel on the Mossie.

What recipe are you using for your subsonic reloads

IIRC, about 14 grains of A1 makes for a nice subsonic 1oz 20g round in a 65mm case with a fibre wad

Of course anyone wishing to load that would have to double check it's validity for their own safety

[darren m]

sure just seen this gun in this months Gunmart

[Verminator 66]

Soon after acquiring my Hushpowered 12g Mossberg I realised that the solid black outline of the huge moderator had a tendency to catch the eye of the quarry it was pointed at - mostly crows - and decided I'd better find a way to camouflage it.

I began by wrapping scrim around it but this interfered with the sightline too much. Next I tried some camo tape, but this soon became tatty and began to peel off. I thought of painting it, but decided I'd prefer a more readily-reversible solution, so I started looking for a moderator cover.

The commercially-available neoprene moderator covers were obviously all too short, and the equivalent barrel covers were too narrow, so I tried asking BBS member William, whose bottle covers I'd seen on here, whether he could make me one.

He doesn't work with camo neoprene any more, owing to the high cost of the material, but offered me a choice of camo fabrics instead. Though the options included some familiar Mossy Oak and Realtree patterns, I went for a new conifer-based pattern by Camo West, called Vanish, which looked like it would be a good match for the places I set my hides.

To cut a long story a bit shorter, Will couldn't have been more helpful, and before long I got a bag through the post containing my new cover. As you can see -pics 1, 2, 3, 4- It has elasticated ends, fits like a glove, and does a great job of breaking up the moderator's outline. And for the princely sum of £14 including postage, I reckon it's seriously good value.

Anyway, I checked with Will that he wouldn't mind me posting a review, so if you fancy one for your Hushpower just drop him a PM.

I had one off these and what i used was a dubble barrel real tree cover fitted a treat and did make it a bit quieter aswell

[Practical]

i just spent money on gun mart as i thought this gun was for want of a better word -cool- if i had known it was on here i wouldnt of bothered

[Oddbob08]

sure just seen this gun in this months Gunmart

I was just going to say that...

Does it work out cheaper reloading shells? I once read it wasn't worth it as a money saving exorcise in the UK due to the price of cartridges bought in bulk wasn't much more than the component cost?

[Craig-P]

Where did you buy your 500's synthetic furniture from mate? I need some for mine as the original wood stock's a bit messy.

( Sent you a PM )

Cheers, Craig

[william]

Bump to the top for Tomh

regards
Will..