First Looks
My first thought when I picked up Mossberg’s 990 AfterShock at my local gun shop was, “Dang, this would have been handy for door breaching.” Then I wondered just how much my wrists were going to hate me when I actually got it on the range. More on that in a second.
Having previously tested Mossberg’s 940 Pro Tactical, I immediately noticed a lot of similarities with the new 990 AfterShock.
All the controls are oversized and well-textured. The magazine tube runs the full length of the barrel for a total of 5+1 2.75-inch shotshells, and that 14.75-inch barrel is topped with a bright red fiber-optic front sight. I was immediately dubious that I would be able to hit much with that sight, but it seemed like a decent point of reference for rough aiming.
In the hand, the gun has some heft to it. It feels solid but also nimble. The real question is just what it will feel like to shoot it. So, let’s jump right into our first trip to the range.
Range Time
Unfortunately, we had to endure a rare Wisconsin windstorm during our trip to the range. Fortunately, that hardly impacted our accuracy because, well, I wasn’t about to try to hit anything past 30 feet with a 12-gauge pistol-grip firearm like this one.
Shooting from any distance really felt like missing the whole point of a gun like the 27.125-inch AfterShock with no stock or rear sight.
On the other hand, the gun seemed perfect for practicing some survival shooting on a bleeding zombie target I happened to have sitting around from Triumph Systems. Here’s how that turned out from 30 feet, shooting mostly off the hip.
I found that I could run the gun just about as fast as I could pull the trigger and – mostly – hit the target from 10 long paces, but it wasn’t a precise affair. Some shots flew wide, which at least gave us a good idea of just what this little boom tube can do.
Near the end of shooting, as I got a bit more fatigued, I did tragically manage to split the vertical 2x2-inch target pole clean in half.
I’m sitting at just 100 rounds through the 990 from my first range trip. Before I maimed my target carrier, I also ran 20 3-inch hunting loads filled with #2 shot. Even at just 30 feet, the spread on the pattern was around 7 inches and dense enough to blow the lungs straight through our zombie target.
I noticed right away that the trigger was surprisingly crisp with a short pull and reset. That made the gun very fast shooting. Still, the limited distance between the femur-like semi-pistol grip and the forend made it hard to accurately point the gun. As a righty, that led me to pull half of my shots a few inches farther to the left than I intended.
Surprisingly, most of the 00 buckshot loads we tested were easy enough to tame. It was the hunting loads that really made the recoil buck like a mustang. I had zero malfunctions with the full-power hunting loads. However, the low-recoil eight-pellet buckshot loads struggled to cycle at first.
For now, I’m chalking this up to a potential break-in period. I could feel the gun smoothing out over the course of our range trip. I’ll be back on the range for much more shooting this spring, so stand by for an update on that.
Specs & Features
Unlike Mossberg’s popular and similarly stumpy pump-action 590 Shockwave, the 990 AfterShock is a gas-operated design that closely resembles the company’s growing semi-auto 940 Pro line. That line includes everything from the elongated 12+1 12-gauge 940 Pro Snow Goose and 9+1 940 Pro JM competition shotguns to the squat 940 Pro Turkey with an 18.5-inch barrel.
The internal gas system is corrosion-resistant, with a nickel boron-coated gas piston, magazine tube, hammer, and sear. Oversized controls help with speedy loading and shooting under pressure. These include an enlarged and beveled loading port, elongated elevator, and oversized bolt release.
Here’s a quick breakdown of the rest of the specs for this short variant of the 990 AfterShock:
Length: 27.125 inches
Barrel Length: 14.75 inches
Weight: 6.04 pounds
Finish: Matte blue
Chamber: 3 inches
Capacity: 5+1 2.75-inch shells
Choke: Cylinder bore
Mossberg put some decent work into its bone-like semi-pistol grip, which hosts a rubberized texture and palm pad to mitigate the recoil of this 6-pound trench sweeper. Managing that recoil with 3-inch hunting loads takes some practice, but I never found the gun to be painful when shooting.
It is definitely a little jumpy with heavier loads.
If I had to pick one feature that I liked the most, it would be the enhanced safety. I’ve always liked Mossberg’s tang safeties, and Mossberg went the extra mile to improve the hump and texture on the AfterShock’s safety. That’s key because indexing your hand on the squat firearm takes some practice. The larger safety made it very easy to get the gun into action fast.
Pros & Cons
Here are my top five pros and cons for Mossberg’s new 990 AfterShock:
Pros:
- Very compact
- Great capacity at 5+1 with 2.75-inch shells
- Quick to load and shoot
- Lots of extra features, including oversized controls
- Improved grip texture and forend strap
Cons:
- Aiming without a laser is tough past 30 feet
- Full-power loads can be snappy
- Ours needed a slight break-in period
- Expect to burn through ammo fast
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Not a great option for hunting or clay shooting
Final Thoughts
We found it likes hunting and full-power self-defense loads the best. Given its small size, the gun actually has tons of extras crammed into it. The rubberized grip, elongated and textured forend, and forend strap make it a more manageable shooter than you would expect.
After my first range day, I didn’t notice any hotspots on my hands. I was more surprised by how quickly I could run this little fire breather, and I had limited experience with chopped-down shotgun-like pistol-grip firearms before running the AfterShock. All in all, it’s a lot of power packed into a tiny but mighty package.
