Remember a few weeks back I picked up a bargain 590 that needed just a tad of work? Well, one of the things I wanted to do was replace the gimmicky M-4-style stock with a more solid stock suitable for casual abuse and percussive persuasion. My exact words, in fact, were “Need to contact the guys at Choate and see what they have for a replacement stock/forend.” Well, as it turns out, Choate contacted me.

Some background: I’ve been using various Choate stocks since the late 80’s when they were all the rage in the preparedness (called ‘survivalist’ back then) community. I still recall their ads in gun magazines. I had a stock for my Mini-14 (remember those?), and later came across a really wonderful stock for the Thompson Contender carbine. (I was told that those stocks were kind of an oddball from re-utilizing M1 carbine stocks. Regardless it is the best stock for the TC carbine I’ve ever used in terms of weight, durability, and handiness.)

Anyway. Choate made a shotgun stock that I liked for those times when a wooden stock wasn’t tactical enough or resilient enough. After I got the 590 I thought I’d head over to Choate’s website and pick one up. Turns out they aren’t on the website anymore. But, the fine folks (and fellow like-minded individuals) at Choate managed to score me a stock and forend. You know what was really cool though? The forend even came with the little tool you need to remove those stupid forend nut. Very thoughtful.

Now, you may wonder why I prefer the non-pistol-grip stock in this case. Well, it’s really an ergonomic thing – the tang safety on the Mossberg is a breeze to operate with a ‘traditional’ stock, but with a pistol-grip stock your hand has to do more gymnastics to get to the safety. On the Remington, the safety is easily manipulated with either type of stock, not so on the Mossberg.

By the way, I have no idea what the story is with the coated green barrel. It’s not spraypaint, it’s actually a tiny houndstooth pattern of two shades of green very professionally applied. I’m guessing the barrel was a takeoff from a different gun. I really don’t care, it’s just a little odd looking.

So I disassembled the 590 and slipped on the new stock and forend. Gone was the gimmicky M4 stock and cheesy corncob forend (that still had velcro from where bubba had mounted some NCStar ‘tactical’ Chinese crap) and in its place was some very nice, very durable, very black, and very brutal furniture from our friends at Choate.

Now, thats a happy enough ending to a long story about a Mossberg 590, but the folks at Choate didn’t stop there. You know they make other molded products too, right? Like these ice scrapers. Yeah..ice scrapers. Ok. :::wink wink:::

And then this….monster….

I would like to have been in the office at Choate the day the guys from design came in and said “Hey boss..you know those ice scrapers we make? Well, me and the boys were thinking….”. This baby is definitely going in the pocket of the vehicle door. Yeah, a $3 ice scraper from the plastic bowl next to the register at the local QwikeeMart will scrape ice too, but this BAMF takes it to a whole new level. And…it’s a multitasker. For very particular tasks. How can you not admire that sort of creativity?

Anyway, big thanks to Choate for coming to the rescue on the Mossberg 590.

ETA: Yes, I do..and yes, it is.