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O.F. Mossberg & Sons (commonly known as Mossberg) is an American firearms manufacturer, specializing in shotguns, rifles, scopes, and firearm accessories. History Oscar Frederick Mossberg (1866-1937) was born on 1 September 1866, in Sweden, near the village of Svanskog in Värmland, and emigrated to the United States in 1886. Mossberg went to work at the Iver Johnson Arms & Cycle Works in Fitchburg, Massachusetts. While at Iver Johnson, Mossberg supervised the manufacture of revolvers and shotguns, while contributing some of his own patented designs, including a top strap latching mechanism for the Iver Johnson safety revolver. When Mossberg left Iver Johnson, he went on to manage the small factory of the C.S. Shattuck Arms Co. in nearby Hatfield, Massachusetts, which manufactured single- and double-barrel breechloading shotguns. From there he went to work for J. Stevens Arms & Tool Co., where he designed a small four-shot novelty pistol which he patented in his name. Working out of an old barn behind his house, Mossberg and his sons made about 500 of these four-shot pistols between 1907 and 1909. In 1914, Mossberg left Stevens, moving to New Haven, Connecticut in order to work for Marlin-Rockwell. In 1919, when Marlin-Rockwell went out of business (they primarily made machineguns, and World War I had just ended), the unemployed 53-year-old O.F. Mossberg and his two sons, Iver and Harold, started a new firearms company of their own, O.F. Mossberg & Sons. Renting a small loft on State Street in New Haven, the Mossbergs began work on a simple four-shot .22-caliber pocket pistol, the Brownie. Marketed largely to hunters and trappers for the humane killing of wounded or trapped animals, approximately 37,000 Brownie pistols were produced from 1920 to 1932. Connecticut Thanks to the Brownie pistol, the Mossbergs' firearms business grew steadily, and in 1921 the company purchased a building on Greene Street in New Haven, Connecticut. In 1922, the company introduced the first of a new line of .22 rimfire Mossberg rifles, a pump-action repeater designed by Arthur E. Savage, the son of the owner of Savage Arms Corp. After building a third factory in New Haven, Connecticut in 1937, Mossberg continued to produce simple, economical firearms for the civilian market. O.F. Mossberg died in 1937, and the business continued under his son Harold. During World War II, the company made parts for Browning M2 .50-caliber heavy machine gun and for the Enfield No. 4 rifle under contract, as well as the U.S. Model 42 and Model 44 .22 caliber bolt-action rifle, which was used for preliminary small arms training for the Army and Navy. In 1960, the company shifted production to a new facility in North Haven a few miles away. At one time, the plant employed hundreds of skilled workers, many of whom had previously worked at other well-known firearms manufacturers such as Colt's Manufacturing Company, Marlin Firearms, Smith & Wesson, and Winchester. O.F. Mossberg & Sons has remained a family-owned business to this day, and is the oldest family-owned firearms manufacturer in America. Mossberg died in 1937.. Mossberg registered the following patents;, repeating firearm, patent no. 651577 1900, firearm lock, patent no. 697516 1902, revolving firearm, patent no. 697517 1902, breech loading firearm, patent no. 745885 1903, hinge pin for breakdown guns, patent no. 754080 1904, assigned to M E Johnson, breec loading fiearm, patent no. 756039 1904, assigned to J Stevens Arms & Tool Co., with Charles P Fay, patented a breech loading firearm, patent no. 796307 1905, breech loading firearm, patent no. 818461 1906, assigned to M E Johnson, breech loading firearm, patent no. 840507 1907, assigned to J Stevens Arms & Tool Co. Today, while the corporate headquarters remains in North Haven, the company has moved nearly all firearms production to its Eagle Pass, Texas facility in response to new firearms legislation, and has reduced its North Haven workforce accordingly. Following the success of the Brownie .22 pistol, Mossberg developed a line of inexpensive .22 caliber rifles, shotguns, and rifle scopes. From the 1940s through the 1960s, Mossberg produced a HI line of .22 caliber target and sporting rifles. After the end of World War II, Mossberg concentrated on producing sporting long guns for the entry-level sportsman, particularly shotguns. Most of these were bolt-action or pump-action designs. In August 1961, Mossberg introduced the 500 Series pump-action shotgun, which eventually became one of the most-produced sporting firearms in the world, with over ten million shotguns sold. Designed by Carl Benson, Mossberg's lead design engineer, the 500 was originally intended for use by the entry-level hunter and sportsman but has since become popular for home defense use as well. Using a forged aluminum receiver and steel bolt that locks into a steel extension of the barrel to save weight, the gun was designed with a minimum of parts that could be produced easily with a minimum of machining required and which could be installed without hand-fitting. Variants of the basic Mossberg 500 shotgun have been adopted for use by the U.S. military as well as law enforcement. Today, Mossberg offers bolt-action, lever-action and autoloading rifles as well as pump-action, autoloading, and over/under shotguns, some are made in Turkey, and some are assembled in the USA from parts made in both American and Mexico. Maverick Arms In 1989, faced with increased foreign competition and rising labor and production costs, Mossberg's corporate affiliate Maverick Arms opened a 40,000-square-foot manufacturing plant in the Eagle Pass Industrial Park in the state of Texas. The Eagle Pass, Texas production facility was greatly enlarged in 2013 to help production and warehousing keep up with demand. With the addition of 116,000 square feet of factory space at the Eagle Pass facility, Mossberg also expanded its Texas workforce to 450 employees. Today over 90% of all O.F. Mossberg & Sons shotguns and rifles are produced at the Eagle Pass, Texas facility. In the 19th Century, most shotguns were break action single or double barrel type jobs. Towards the end that century the first pump and lever-action, repeaters came on the market but the newest rifle designs of the early 1900s were bolt-action rifles with detachable box magazines. After World War 1, several Model Gew 98 German Mausers were converted to fire shotgun shells and these became seen as a very modern idea for a very modern age. Oscar Mossberg, a shrewd engineer and businessman, decided to jump on this concept with both feet and introduce a new shotgun designed from the ground-up as a bolt-action. Starting in the early 1930s, he came up with his prototype bolt action shotguns. The gun, fundamentally just a large chambered smoothbore rifle with a turn bolt action set into a one-piece stock, was very simple. In all it contained just over 40 parts and could be made cheaply since the steel of the barrel could be soft due to the low pressures of shotgun shells. Unlike many early pump-action guns that could bind up, the bolt provided almost no chance of failure to feed or eject. Overall, the new design could be a solid challenger during the Great Depression against the more expensive Winchester Model 12 and the Remington 31 pump guns. The first bolt action Mossberg to hit the market was the 1933-era .410 Model G Bolt Action Repeater. This four shot rabbit and squirrel gun weighed but 5.5-pounds and used a 26-inch barrel that worked with pretty swag chrome plated bolt lever and trigger. This gun spawned the Model 70 (no relation to Winchester’s rifle of the same designation), a handy little 4.75-pound takedown single shot that could be broken down into two short pieces, each about two feet long, for transport. By 1939 the same design had been produced in 20-gauge as the Model 75. By the start of World War Two in 1941, there were nearly a dozen models and subvariants of the .410 and 20-gauge bolt gun in Mossberg’s catalog. Wartime production of military weapons halted the line and killed the concept for the rest of the decade. After World War 2, thousands of military surplus Winchester, Remington, Ithaca and Stevens pump-action shotguns were glutting the civilian market. These guns, shed by a shrinking military that did not need them to fight Germans, Japanese, or Italians, swamped the gun shelves for a generation. Trying to reenter the fray of peacetime scatterguns for the hunting market, Mossberg redesigned their whole line of bolt-action guns, going from double digit model numbers (e.g. 73, 65, 85) to triple digit numbers (173, 183). These could be considered the 2nd Gen of OFM’s bolt-action shotguns. Many of the 300 series OFM bolt guns used the C-LECT-CHOKE. This choke was attached to the barrel and could be adjusted from modified to full. For a time Mossberg tried to move away from their legacy designs and get into the competition for pump action guns. In fact, their Model 200 slide action, introduced in 1955, was the company’s first venture into a scattergun that wasn’t a bolt action. The thing is, people still remembered the pre-war bolt guns, which had a good reputation among hunters, and asked the company for more. This kept their Model .410-gauge Model 183s and 20-gauge Model 185s in production throughout the Fifties and Sixties. To further expand the line and take advantage of the popularity of the 16-gauge (which was the most popular shotgun caliber in the country for about 30 years), they introduced the Model 190 in 16-gauge and then the Model 195 in 12 at the same time. Overall, these Mossberg bolt guns were country simple, priced right, and effective. Other ‘value’ makers such as Marlin Firearms even jumped on the bolt shotgun bandwagon in the 1950s with their Model 55 series. They had to get in line behind Stevens and Harrington and Richardson who had been following Mossberg’s bolt-action guns with their own since the 30s. Adding factory recoil pads, variable C-Lect-Chokes attached to the muzzle, cross bolt safeties, and sling swivels, Mossberg took their 100-series guns and upgraded the line in the late 1960s to the new Model 385/390/395 designations. By 1974, the company stopped making 16-gauges, the first victim of yesteryear. I myself owned a 12-gauge M395K as a kid 20 years ago and (stupidly) decided to bang out some Olin 12-gauge rescue flares out of it—which didn’t work too well. Needless to say, do not shoot flares out of a regular shotgun. Moreover, do not show my dad this article. The last and most modern ‘5th Generation’ of Mossberg bolt action was the Model 695. These guns have been around since 1995 but were quietly discontinued in 2003, ending the exactly 70-year run of bolt shotguns for OFM. Instead of inexpensive guns meant for the everyman, these 695s were niche shotguns. One model was a rifled slug gun with a 22″ fully rifled ported barrel, adjustable fiber optic sights, and Weaver scope bases. The other was a gobbler gun equipped with a camo synthetic stock and a 22′ Accu-choke barrel with extra-full turkey tube to reach out and make those pinpoint shots on Mr. Tom. Perhaps bolts were better left on rifles, but don’t tell that to those who own one of these ‘old reliables’. The 195,295 and 395 series are the 12 gauge bolt-action shotguns from this Company. The 3XX series was introduced in 1963 and discontinued in the 1990s. This 395 ‘take-down’ gun is fitted with a steam-lined stock with pistol grip and rubber recoil pad. The gun weigh 7 lbs with a 26” tapered, blued steel barrel, proof tested with standard proof load. A turn on the adjusting sleeve of the C-lect-choke will instantly change the choke from full to modified or improved. The gun load 3 shots by placing one shell in the chamber and two shells in the clip-type magazine. The gun’s lock-work is of a bolt-action type with a safety lever locking the sear. The gun-lock cocks on opening and the gun cannot fire unless the bolt handle is all the way down. All factory 12 ga, 2.75” or 3” shells, shot, buckshot or slugs will safely chamber. This is a product from the Mossberg Company, who are known for cheap, plain, but well made firearms. It is really a field gun, for bird and deer shooting, wherefore it is fitted with rear sights as well. Mossberg acquitted themselves with distinction in keenly contested clay target events such as the “Grand American” (Ref: Dictionary of Guns and Gunmakers by John Walter, Internet Gun Club, https://www.guns.com/news/2013/08/21/mossberg-bolt-action-shotguns-odd-never-felt-so-good, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O.F._Mossberg_%26_Sons )

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