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Well, I finally made it to a range to shoot my somewhat recently acquired Mossberg MVP Patrol. Its a bolt-action carbine in 5.56x45mm that accepts AR magazines. It has a 16.25" medium-profile barrel with basic iron sights and an A2 flash-hider mounted in a wooden stock that has been coated with a thick, rough, non-slip type paint. There is a picatinny rail mounted over the receiver. I mounted a Bushnell AR-Optics 1-4x24 scope on it.

I initially rough-sighted the scope at 20 paces in the house using a Laserlyte that fits into the barrel. That was good enough to get me on paper at the range at 50 yards and then I got it dialed pretty decent in about 10 shots. Using 55 grain soft-point Ultramax factory reloads, I was able to shoot about 1 inch, 5 shot groups at 50 yards. With a bit of fine tuning, I think I'll be to do that at 100 yards (which is why I didn't take any pictures of targets this time).

Its light, its quick to shoulder, and I think it just has a "neat" factor to it. It did NOT like the factory 10-round magazine that came with it, stubbornly refusing to chamber a round. However, I had three ten-round magazines from my time stationed in California some years ago, and it fed out of all of those just fine. Like I said, it can accept any AR mag, but the 10s are good because they don't stick out very far. Some may question the need for such a firearm versus an AR, but I think that once I'm moved out to the country (at some point in the near future, hopefully) that it will make an excellent "truck gun".

(The picture here is stock from the Mossberg website, so you can see what it looks like. Its also available in 7.62x51mm using AR-10 mags.)

I like my MVP varmint, but I don't trust the "flapper" at the bottom of the bolt to hold up to much abuse. I run my magazine about halfway full to take some of the stress off that part.

Except that it's not a scout rifle, this looks kind of like Mossberg's answer to Ruger's Gunsite Scout. Same barrel length, box magazine fed, flash hider, optics rail, and iron sights. The main difference is the location of the rail.

The Annoyed Man wrote:Except that it's not a scout rifle, this looks kind of like Mossberg's answer to Ruger's Gunsite Scout. Same barrel length, box magazine fed, flash hider, optics rail, and iron sights. The main difference is the location of the rail.

That was my first thought when I saw one... It really wants to be a Scout.

Well, anything rifle with the word "Scout" on it costs more than I'm willing to fork out.

KC5AV wrote:

The Annoyed Man wrote:Except that it's not a scout rifle, this looks kind of like Mossberg's answer to Ruger's Gunsite Scout. Same barrel length, box magazine fed, flash hider, optics rail, and iron sights. The main difference is the location of the rail.

That was my first thought when I saw one... It really wants to be a Scout.

Do you really think the forward mounted scope is better?

MechAg94 wrote:

KC5AV wrote:

The Annoyed Man wrote:Except that it's not a scout rifle, this looks kind of like Mossberg's answer to Ruger's Gunsite Scout. Same barrel length, box magazine fed, flash hider, optics rail, and iron sights. The main difference is the location of the rail.

That was my first thought when I saw one... It really wants to be a Scout.

Do you really think the forward mounted scope is better?

Better? It's more like "another way of doing things" than a "better or worse" thing. In other words, it has its advantages and its disadvantages.

The scout scope has the advantage of generous eye relief, which encourages shooting with both eyes open, which gives better situational awareness, and which brings the sight picture into clear focus very quickly and easily. It's sort of like using an RDS, except it has crosshairs.

On the other hand, it has the disadvantages of lower magnification, smaller range of magnification between highest and lowest settings on the variable power versions, and they tend to have smaller objective lens diameters which can mean less light gathering ability.

So, for long range work, not as good. But for a quick handy "brush gun" kind of rifle, it's a superior platform.

I like my Ruger scout rifle quite a lot, and I have a nice 1.5-5X32mm Leupold Scout scope on it. I am generally sold on the scout rifle concept. But as some of you may know, I've developed cataracts and I'm at the point where I need all the magnification I can get. I haven't shot the rifle in a while, and the changes to my vision have been fairly radical since I last shot it. I suspect that I will have to convert it to a standard format at some point down the road.

XS Sights makes an extended rail the replaces the one that comes on the rifle. The replacement rail is longer and bridges the length of the receiver, allowing you to mount a regular scope in the traditional position. At the rear, it mounts on the OEM rear sight mount, and incorporates an adjustable rear aperture sight on the rail which replaces the OEM rear sight. Alternatively, the rifle comes with a set of standard Ruger scope mounts.

Purists would argue that the RGS isn't a real scout rifle because the box magazine can't be recharged in place though the top of the receiver, using stripper clips. To me, that's kind of irrelevant. Those same purists would say it really isn't a real scout rifle if the scope isn't forward mounted. Pish tosh.

If I reconfigure mine, there is a Vortex Viper PST 2.5-10x32mm scope with an illuminated FFP milling reticle that I like a lot, that I think would be ideal for this kind of rifle configuration......in which case there wouldn't be much difference between the RGS and the Mossberg MVP.

Is the scout concept better? Not really. Both of these companies set out to accomplish basically the same goal—building a light, compact bolt rifle with tactical features, chambered in proven cartridges.

And, once again, TAM for the win.

I doubt I will ever spend the money on a Scout rifle. The closest I have is my M1A SOCOM with a red dot out on the forward rail which should fit the bill just fine (I still prefer the irons). For my small experience with scopes sitting away from my eye, I did not care for it. Each to his own.

That said, I have thought about the Mossberg bolt rifle in 308 that takes DPMS mags. I am just not sure if would really be an advantage over the SOCOM beyond weight.

MechAg94 wrote:I doubt I will ever spend the money on a Scout rifle. The closest I have is my M1A SOCOM with a red dot out on the forward rail which should fit the bill just fine (I still prefer the irons). For my small experience with scopes sitting away from my eye, I did not care for it. Each to his own.

That said, I have thought about the Mossberg bolt rifle in 308 that takes DPMS mags. I am just not sure if would really be an advantage over the SOCOM beyond weight.

I like that SOCOM rifle. The RGS was pricy, but not THAT pricey. I paid around $750 for mine, if memory serves. If I were buying today, instead of back when I bought the Ruger, I would take a long hard look at the Mossberg. However, there is one significant advantage the Ruger has over the Mossberg, all other issues aside, and that is that you can buy a left-handed model. The Mossberg website didn't seem to indicate the availability of left-handed rifles. If they had them, I would like to buy one. I think it is a cool platform.

When it comes to bolt rifles, unless I'm buying an antique for its historical interest, I just won't buy a right-handed bolt-action rifle anymore. I don't want to have to live with the awkwardness of using a right-handed bolt if the same thing is available in a lefty version.

But one thing I like about that mossberg is its use of standard magazines in both calibers, which are easy to find and not too expensive. If it will take the DPMS magazines, it will also take the PMAGs, or any other magazine that fits the SR25 platform. Since I have an AR10, I have a bunch of those magazines. That is one thing that I think Ruger didn't get right. Using that single column AI mag was a mistake.