 | |
| Company type | Incorporation |
|---|---|
| Industry | Firearms |
| Founded | March 1919 [1] |
| Founder | Oscar Frederick Mossberg and his sons |
| Headquarters | , |
Area served | Worldwide |
Key people | Alan Iver Mossberg Jr. (CEO) |
| Products | Firearms, scopes |
| US$24,600,000 [2] | |
Number of employees | 500 [2] |
| Website | www |
O. F. Mossberg & Sons (commonly known as Mossberg) is an American firearms manufacturer, specializing in shotguns, rifles, scopes, and pistol accessories.
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. [3] [4] 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. [3] [5] 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. [3] 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. [3] In 1914, Mossberg left Stevens, moving to New Haven, Connecticut, in order to work for Marlin-Rockwell. [3] 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. [3] 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 . [3] Marketed largely to hunters and trappers for the humane killing of wounded or trapped animals, Mossberg produced approximately 37,000 Brownie pistols from 1920 to 1932. [3]
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. [3] 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. [3]
After building a third factory in New Haven in 1937, Mossberg continued to produce simple, economic firearms for the civilian market. O.F. Mossberg died in 1937, and the business continued under his son Harold. [3]
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. [3]
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 remains a family-owned business and is the oldest family-owned firearms manufacturer in America. [6]
Today, while the corporate headquarters are still in North Haven, the company has moved nearly all firearms production to Eagle Pass, Texas.
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 (3,700 m2) manufacturing plant in the Eagle Pass Industrial Park in the state of Texas. Mossberg greatly enlarged the Eagle Pass production facility in 2013 to help production and warehousing keep up with demand. With the addition of 116,000 square feet (10,800 m2) of factory space, Mossberg also expanded its Texas workforce to 450 employees. [7] Today, over 90% of all O. F. Mossberg & Sons shotguns and rifles are produced at the Eagle Pass facility. [7]
Following the success of the Brownie .22 pistol, Mossberg developed a line of inexpensive .22 caliber rifles, shotguns, and rifle scopes. [8]
From the 1940s through the 1960s, Mossberg produced a HI line of .22 caliber target and sporting rifles. [2] [9] [10]
After the end of World War II, Mossberg concentrated on producing sporting long guns for entry-level shooters, mainly 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.[ citation needed ] Designed by Carl Benson, Mossberg's lead design engineer, the 500 was initially intended for use by the entry-level hunter and shooter 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, Benson designed the gun with a minimum of parts that could be produced quickly with a minimum of machining required and which could be installed without hand-fitting. The U.S. military and law enforcement agencies have adopted variants of the basic Mossberg 500 shotgun.[ citation needed ]
Mossberg offers bolt-action, lever-action, and auto-loading rifles, as well as pump-action, auto-loading, and over/under shotguns. Manufacturing is done both in Turkey and in the US from parts made in both America and Mexico.[ citation needed ]
In January 2019, the company introduced the MC1sc, a subcompact semi-automatic pistol chambered in 9×19mm Parabellum, Mossberg's first handgun offering since the Brownie was introduced 100 years prior. [11]
Rifles | Shotguns | Pistols |
A shotgun is a long-barreled firearm designed to shoot a straight-walled cartridge known as a shotshell, which discharges numerous small spherical projectiles called shot, or a single solid projectile called a slug. Shotguns are most commonly used as smoothbore firearms, meaning that their gun barrels have no rifling on the inner wall, but rifled barrels for shooting sabot slugs are also available.
In firearm designs, the term single-shot refers to guns that can hold only a single round of ammunition inside and thus must be reloaded manually after every shot. Compared to multi-shot repeating firearms ("repeaters"), single-shot designs have no moving parts other than the trigger, hammer/firing pin or frizzen, and therefore do not need a sizable receiver behind the barrel to accommodate a moving action, making them far less complex and more robust than revolvers or magazine/belt-fed firearms, but also with much slower rates of fire.
A semi-automatic rifle is an auto-loading rifle that fires a single round of ammunition at a time. It uses part of the fired cartridge's energy to eject the case and automatically loads another cartridge into its chamber. This is in contrast to bolt-action or lever-action rifles, which require the user to manually chamber a new round before they can fire again, and fully automatic rifles, which fire continuously while the trigger is held down.
In firearms terminology, an action is the functional mechanism of a breechloading firearm that handles the ammunition cartridges, or the method by which that mechanism works. Actions are technically not present on muzzleloaders, as all those are single-shot firearms with a closed off breech with the powder and projectile manually loaded from the muzzle. Instead, the muzzleloader ignition mechanism is referred to as the lock.
John Moses Browning was an American firearm designer who developed many varieties of military and civilian firearms, cartridges, and gun mechanisms, many of which are still in use around the world. He made his first firearm at age 13 in his father's gun shop and was awarded the first of his 128 firearm patents on October 7, 1879, at the age of 24. He is regarded as one of the most successful firearms designers of the 19th and 20th centuries and a pioneer of modern repeating, semi-automatic, and automatic firearms.
Winchester rifle is a comprehensive term describing a series of lever action repeating rifles manufactured by the Winchester Repeating Arms Company. Developed from the 1860 Henry rifle, Winchester rifles were among the earliest repeaters. The Model 1873 was particularly successful, being marketed by the manufacturer as "The Gun That Won the West".
A lever action is a type of action for repeating firearms that uses a manually operated cocking handle located around the trigger guard area that pivots forward to move the bolt via internal linkages, which will feed and extract cartridges into and out of the chamber, and cock the firing pin mechanism. This contrasts to other type of repeating actions such as the bolt-action, pump-action, semi-automatic, fully automatic, and/or burst mode actions. A firearm using this operating mechanism is colloquially referred to as a levergun.
Savage Arms is an American gunmaker based in Westfield, Massachusetts, with operations in Canada and China. Savage makes a variety of rimfire and centerfire rifles, as well as Stevens single-shot rifles and shotguns. The company is best known for the Model 99 lever-action rifle, no longer in production, and the .300 Savage. Savage was a subsidiary of Vista Outdoor until 2019 when it was spun off.
The Mossberg 500 is a series of pump-action shotguns manufactured by O.F. Mossberg & Sons. The 500 series comprises widely varying models of hammerless repeaters, all of which share the same basic receiver and action, but differ in bore size, barrel length, choke options, magazine capacity, stock and forearm materials. Model numbers included in the 500 series are the 500, 505, 510, 535, and 590. The Revelation 310 and the New Haven 600 were also variations of the 500 series produced by Mossberg under different names. By 2021, about 11 million M500s had been produced, making it the most-produced shotgun of all time.
Pump action is a type of manual firearm action that is operated by moving a sliding handguard on the gun's forestock. When shooting, the sliding forend is pulled rearward to eject any expended cartridge and typically to cock the hammer or striker, and then pushed forward to load a new cartridge into the chamber. Most pump-action firearms use an integral tubular magazine, although some do use detachable box magazines. Pump-action firearms are typically associated with shotguns, although it has also been used in rifles, grenade launchers, and other types of firearms. A firearm using this operating mechanism is colloquially referred to as a pumpgun.
The .22 Winchester Magnum Rimfire, also known as the .22 WMR, .22 Magnum, .22 WMRF, .22 MRF, or .22 Mag, is a rimfire cartridge. Originally loaded with a bullet weight of 40 grains (2.6 g) delivering velocities in the 2,000 feet per second (610 m/s) range from a rifle barrel, .22 WMR is now loaded with bullet weights ranging from 50 grains (3.2 g) at 1,530 feet per second (470 m/s) to 30 grains (1.9 g) at 2,200 feet per second (670 m/s).
The Remington Model 7600 is a series of pump-action centerfire rifles made by Remington Arms. The Model 7600 is a progression from the original Model 760 pump-action rifle which Remington produced from 1952 to 1981. Production of the Model Six began in 1981 and was discontinued in 1987. Production of the Sportsman model 76 began in 1985 and was discontinued in 1987. Production of the model 7600 began in 1987 and was discontinued in 2020.
Česká zbrojovka a.s., is a Czech armament manufacturer that is based in Uherský Brod. The company is famous for producing service, hunting and sporting firearms. It is owned by the Czech holding company Colt CZ Group SE, which also owns other brands with related production programs.
The Winchester Repeating Arms Company was a prominent American manufacturer of repeating firearms and ammunition. The firm was established in 1866 by Oliver Winchester and was located in New Haven, Connecticut. The firm went into receivership in 1931 and was bought by the Western Cartridge Company, a forerunner of the Olin Corporation. The Winchester brand name is still owned by the Olin Corporation, which makes ammunition under that name. The Winchester name is also used under license for firearms produced by two subsidiaries of the Herstal Group – FN Herstal of Belgium and the Browning Arms Company of Ogden, Utah.
The Winchester Model 1887 and Winchester Model 1901 are lever-action shotguns designed by American gun designer John Browning and produced by the Winchester Repeating Arms Company during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The shotgun became well-known due to its use in the 1991 film Terminator 2: Judgment Day.
Marlin Firearms is an American manufacturer of semi-automatic, lever-action and bolt-action rifles. In the past the company made shotguns, derringers, and revolvers. Marlin owned the firearm manufacturer H&R Firearms. In 2007, Remington Arms, part of the Remington Outdoor Company, acquired Marlin Firearms. Remington produced Marlin-brand firearms at its Kentucky and New York manufacturing facilities. In 2020, Sturm, Ruger & Co. bought the Marlin business from bankrupt Remington Outdoor Company.
Harrington & Richardson Arms Company is an American brand of firearms and a subsidiary of JJE Capital Holdings. H&R ceased independent production February 27, 2015.
From 1908 until 1962, Sears, Roebuck & Company sold a wide variety of sporting goods and recreational equipment, including bicycles, golf clubs, rifles, shotguns, and revolvers under the brand name "J. C. Higgins." These products were well made and were popular with the company's historical core of rural and working-class consumers.
The Winchester Model 68 was a single-shot, bolt-action .22 caliber rimfire rifle sold from 1934 to 1945 by Winchester Repeating Arms Company. While almost identical to the slightly cheaper Winchester Model 67, it offered an aperture sight.
