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Recommendations for 12 gauge ammo for my Mossberg Maverick 88

Ed K

Copper BB
Are there any specific ammunition manufacturers to avoid? I'm looking for a good home defense round and a good round for wildlife encounters. Thank you.
 
Welcome.

Boy, that field is pretty much wide open.

I would stick with American ammo, or perhaps European or Mexican. Federal/ATI is always #1, and Winchester or Nobel or Aguila all are GTG. I would avoid Russian stuff, or crap ammo from Turkey.

The Winchester "Military" 00-buck is pure shit.

If you can stay with Federal or Winchester you will almost always get good results.

What kind of wildlife encounters? Reason I ask is that I bought a Mav 88 and I'm loading it with #2 turkey loads for farm predators. Good within 50-feet. But not further.

But I am a huge advocate of 1-oz slugs against almost anything in North America. It has been my "go to" load from any of my Mossberg 12-ga shotguns. But it is not for everyone. Just me and my opinion.
 
A piece of advice:::: go to Cabelas or Bass Pro and buy five or six practice 12-ga dummy rounds in 2-3/4". And train with them like your life will one day depend on knowing how to shoot real live DEFENSIVE ammo, not bird shot. Reloading, short-stroking a round..... you get it.

You will thank me later.

Oh, and i am not an internet airsoft shotgun pretender. I am the real deal. Contact me with any other questions you might have,
 
A piece of advice:::: go to Cabelas or Bass Pro and buy five or six practice 12-ga dummy rounds in 2-3/4". And train with them like your life will one day depend on knowing how to shoot real live DEFENSIVE ammo, not bird shot. Reloading, short-stroking a round..... you get it.

You will thank me later.

Oh, and i am not an internet airsoft shotgun pretender. I am the real deal. Contact me with any other questions you might have,
Thank you. You can bet I will. I'm in the Interior of Alaska and there is Moose and Bear.
 
Ed K, totally agree with Nitesite. I only use Brenneke Black Magic Magnums for bears. Good for all varieties inclufing grizzles. Brand name 00 buck for most other things including home defense.

If you have any issues with recoil get a Limbsaver slip on recoil pad.

Welcome to the forum!

Regards
 
Yeah, I have to deal with bears myself, though not grizzlies. I use a combination of slug and buckshot.

Buckshot is shot #1 because I may or may not be able to do right on a sudden and unexpected charging bear. I'm not going to lie, I'm hoping to at least do something other than making a little noise and why I want a little extra spread to get its' attention and hopefully be inflicting some pain and damage.

Followed up by slugs. By the second shot I'm hoping that I'm fully on target and putting lead on target.

I would also like to mention that many black bear will do a charge, but I'm never going to allow it in my direction, even if it is their nature to "run you off" with a fake charge.

if it's running towards me and my family, play time is over. That bear needs to go away.

I don't like winchester shells, even for wasting at paper plates.
 
Whether you're using a 00 Buck round followed by a slug or straight slugs the important factor is time. Given a bear charge from 25 to 30 yards you might have 2 to 3 seconds before the full charging bear is on you. In this worst case scenario doubt you'll have an opportunity to fire more than two rounds. These magnificent creatures can outrun any human.

Plan and Practice for the worst scenario!

Regards
 
These magnificent creatures can outrun any human.
Regards

They are magnificent. I don't want to shoot or kill any bear. They rule the forest, just like a lion or a cheetah rules the savannah, and they deserve to be left alone if at all possible.
 
They are magnificent. I don't want to shoot or kill any bear. They rule the forest, just like a lion or a cheetah rules the savannah, and they deserve to be left alone if at all possible.


I used to feel the same way. But in the last 20 years, we've been so over run by bear and they're so overpopulated, there is literally not enough for them to eat in the wild which causes them to dumpster dive and try to fight with your pets and livestock over their food. I've had a neighbor who had to put down their horse because it's hind quarters was mauled so bad they couldn't save it. Heck, I've even had to stand guard outside so my kids could play outside in their own yard. Quite literally and not exaggerating armed so they could play IN THE YARD.

I've been charged just taking out my trash before. That's not a good feeling having a 400+ animal charging at you in full stride pissed off because its' territorial over YOUR garbage bin and because the state has protected them so much they have no natural fear of humans. I'm just thankful that I didn't have one of my kids taking out the trash that particular evening. I shudder to think what could have happened.

When an animal loses it's fear of humans, that animal is dangerous to humans and they are superior in strength, speed and can literally eat you alive so that creates a toxic environment for the people and the bears.

My wife had been charged getting groceries out of the car by a different bear.

I have photos of literally over 30 different bear in the same place. I've moved my cameras several times over the years, but each time are within 120 feet radius.

That's too many bears for one spot.

In the last 20 years we've dealt with bears, the turkey and grouse population has went from healthy to NOTHING. I have seen ONE grouse in the last 15 years. And our turkey flock went from 11 down to nothing. Sadly, I have not gotten a photo of a SINGLE turkey in over a year.

The last few years, I've not even been able to deer hunt because their numbers have also dwindled so bad that I've not even been able to do that either.

They're literally destructive nuisance invasive species and good for nothing.

And all of this takes a toll on the bears too. When there isn't enough for them to eat, their health takes a hit too.

It has gotten to the point in my community that you can't even go into walmart or the grocery store without over-hearing someone talking in the next aisle over about them or one of their neighbors shooting a bear earlier that week that was pushing in their out buildings or fighting with their dogs or whatever.

It's really that bad here nitesite. I wouldn't care if every bear in existence just suddenly disappeared.

Ky Fish and Game sucks, and the politicians making the laws to appease the antigunner peta people suck too. The bears and the people both suffers because of it.

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This video below was taken just earlier this morning.

 
Ed K, totally agree with Nitesite. I only use Brenneke Black Magic Magnums for bears. Good for all varieties inclufing grizzles. Brand name 00 buck for most other things including home defense.

If you have any issues with recoil get a Limbsaver slip on recoil pad.

Welcome to the forum!

Regards


Ed K, If you are recoil sensitive, there are recoil reducers that fit into the butt stock bolt hole. If you are interested, just look on a search engine. You can start here:
shotgun recoil reducers - Yahoo Search Results
 
While all these species of bears are magnificent animals IMO the long-term key is to balance of their numbers to their area of reach. These animals tend to be territorial and as their numbers increase it causes their territory and range to also increase rapidly. Up here in the NW there needs to be a balance between the harvesting of numbers to control expansion into populated areas including towns. The grizzle and black bear numbers are rapidly increasing in the mountains across the NW and we're now seeing them moving into the lowlands and into subdivisions. They raid garbage dumps, bird and cattle feeders, and trash cans in towns. The federal and state officials need to aggressively address this balance issue. Unfortunately, their track record, demonstrated by inept managrment of the grey wolf population, doesn't give locals much hope.

Need a balanced approach!

Regards
 
Ernst, I attended a town hall meeting with the state and their "bear biologist". He explained that their "scientific method" to figuring out how many bears are in a given area is mostly voodoo and wild ass guesses.

And literally came out and said that while they may increase the quota that they alllow to be harvested each year, he flat out said that they'll never have an open season on them or even any meaningful hunting season(s) like they have in most other states because he said they knew they'd be sued and have to waste money on defending it in court, so in effect, the animal rights people have won without having to spend another cent because the state fears them.

That is essentially paraphrasing his answer, but at least he was honest about it.

Sad, but true my friend.

We had not had a single black bear sighting in my county for over 100 years. Ky Fish and Game insist that it was the virginia fish and game that brought their nuisance bears to the KY/VA border and released them which has caused all of this mess.

So, unfortunately, after years of being ignored, the citizens just quietly do what needs to be done about it all hush hush and with a wink and a nod.

The bear situation is a total joke and mess here with no clear resolution that anyone is happy with.

I've also been hearing wolf howls increasing over this last year too. We're not supposed to have wolves either (or mountain lions) but, we do regardless of what their biologists and people say. They denied the existence of bears for years too until they were so overpopulated that they couldn't hide the fact any longer.
 
This graphic illustrates my point on grizzle expansion into populated areas. This is happening all over the NW.

animated_bears_1fps.gif
 
I have no doubt of that.

I'm glad we don't have grizzlies. The black bear are bad enough of a problem.
 
NO insult intended to the mighty 12ga but I wonder how a 7.62X39 would work?? AK styles rifle with 30rds may do the trick. A .556 nope but thinking a 7.62 round times 30 may do it ?
 
NO insult intended to the mighty 12ga but I wonder how a 7.62X39 would work?? AK styles rifle with 30rds may do the trick. A .556 nope but thinking a 7.62 round times 30 may do it ?


Guess you use what you happen to have with you! The pacing issue is reaction time. Worst case reaction time with a 25 - 35 yards full charge is 2 to 3 seconds and likely hood you might get 2, maybe 3 shots before the bear reaches you.

Around here the popular pistol calibers for bear defense are 10mm and 44magum.

Most carry rifles are Marlin and Winchester lever action short barrel carbines in 45-70, 444, 450 Marlin and/or 375 Winchester.

Equally popular is those old, ancient 12 gauges loaded with slugs/ 00 buck. Most are short barrel pump actions or Shockwave types.

My bottomline, carry something effective enough for a one to two shot kill if things really go bad. Most folks carry both a pistol and either a rifle or shotgun. The denseness of the woods also dictates your carry choice. Brush deflects lighter bullets.

Regards
 
Guess you use what you happen to have with you! The pacing issue is reaction time. Worst case reaction time with a 25 - 35 yards full charge is 2 to 3 seconds and likely hood you might get 2, maybe 3 shots before the bear reaches you.

Around here the popular pistol calibers for bear defense are 10mm and 44magum.

Most carry rifles are Marlin and Winchester lever action short barrel carbines in 45-70, 444, 450 Marlin and/or 375 Winchester.

Equally popular is those old, ancient 12 gauges loaded with slugs/ 00 buck. Most are short barrel pump actions or Shockwave types.

My bottomline, carry something effective enough for a one to two shot kill if things really go bad. Most folks carry both a pistol and either a rifle or shotgun. The denseness of the woods also dictates your carry choice. Brush deflects lighter bullets.

Regards
Fortunately there are not a lot of things around here that are bigger than me and consider me food. That's why I stay out of the ocean(sharks) and anyplace there are bears!
 
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