The Mossberg 930 Thunder Ranch was a crowd pleaser. This model was designed by Thunder Ranch founder Clint Smith for close-quarters defense. One tester hated the KUIU camo and another loved it, but I didn’t care. The only shortcoming of note was the sighting arrangement. This 930 employs a fiber-optic front sight but no rear sight. This system works great for engaging moving targets, which I am sure was Clint Smith’s intention. However, it hurt the gun’s accuracy at distance, which can be important for law enforcement purposes. The top of the receiver is tapped, and the end-user can easily add an aftermarket Picatinny rail and red-dot sight. The 930 finished dead last in the accuracy test, but I truly believe this was only due to the lack of rifle-style sights.
Apart from the sights, every shooter raved about this shotgun. It handled well. It had zero malfunctions. The recoil was light, and it has that great Mossberg ambidextrous safety on the tang. The only other button besides the safety is a bolt release, making it super simple to operate. The breaching standoff is unusual, as most breaching shotguns are dedicated to only that purpose, but it certainly didn’t hinder the gun’s performance in any way. At the end of evaluation, we ran through some team drills, and everyone got to run different drills with the shotgun of their choice. Someone picked the Mossberg 930 Thunder Ranch every time.
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