Mossberg JM Pro Tactical/Competition Shotgun
Lewis Creek Shooting School 01.28.13
Most of the time, to get something really good, you have to pay a little more, sometimes a lot more. Mossberg is a company that has proven this isn’t always true. I’ve been a fan of Mossberg since high school. A high school friend bought a Mossberg 500 pump in 1968 and I was totally impressed that it had good, solid walnut wood, decent bluing, and worked flawlessly. I’ve been a Mossberg fan ever since and once went through a duck season shooting an 835 with a success ratio of one duck per two shells.
When I first saw the semiautomatic Mossberg JM Pro, I was afraid Mossberg had tried to put too much into the features and perhaps the gun might not be able to cash the check the features were writing. I was wrong. This is a great gun and, while it might not be up to the level of guns that are painstakingly modified for competition, it is certainly a great gun for the beginning 3-gunner. It must work pretty well for the experienced three gunner as well, because Jerry Miculek is using one this season and the JM in the name represents his initials.
What makes the JM Pro a great gun is that it works. It has a big operating handle, an oversized loading port for fast reloading, and a ten-round capacity with the big extended magazine. The gun works slick. The trigger isn’t up to master level standards but it’s as good or better than any semi-auto I’ve shot. It’s light, with a slight amount of creep, and it’s adjustable for backlash. The stock comes with a good quality recoil pad and spacers to allow the shooter to adjust cast and comb height. This is important when you’re shooting on the clock, because it assures you shoot where you look and manage the recoil.
I took the gun to a two gun event at Piedmont Handgunner’s Association and match director, Ron Gearren, included it in one of the stages. Every shooter in the event fired it with both slugs and shot, courtesy of Winchester Ammunition, and there wasn’t a single hiccup. Afterwards, I got raves on the event web thread and multiple emails asking where to find one, and they are a little hard to find, a great testimonial for a new gun.
Dick Jones is an award winning outdoor writer and a member of the Southeastern Outdoor Press Association Board of Directors. He writes for four North Carolina Newspapers as well as regional and national magazines. He’s hunted and fished most of his life but shooting has been his passion. He’s a former High Master, Distinguished Rifleman, and AAA class pistol shooter. He holds four Dogs of War Medals for Team Marksmanship as shooter, captain and coach. He ran the North Carolina High Power Rifle Team for six years and the junior team two years after that. Within the last year, he’s competed in shotgun, rifle and pistol events including the National Defense Match and the Bianchi Cup. He’ll be shooting the Bianchi, the NDM, the National High Power Rifle Championship, The Rock Castle AR15.com Three Gun Championship and an undetermined sniper match this shooting season.
He lives in High Point, North Carolina with his wife Cherie who’s also an outdoor writer and the 2006 and 2011 Northeast Side by Side Women’s Shotgun Champion. Both Dick and Cherie are NRA pistol, rifle, and shotgun instructors and own Lewis Creek Shooting School.
