By Terry Houin
The deer bolted through the entrance and Sam was gone before I could grab her. Inside, the air was wrong. My beam swept the walls and found them moving — Darkseekers packed across every surface in dormant sleep, hundreds of them. I got to Sam, got my hand on her collar, and turned us toward the door. Then she whimpered.
One head snapped upright. The chain reaction ripped through the hive like electricity through water.
I raised the Mossberg 990 AfterShock SPX and started moving. No sprinting—sprinting was panic, and panic got you killed. Controlled steps backward, muzzle tracking the shapes dropping from the ceiling, trigger breaking clean each time one closed inside ten feet. Sam stayed tight to my leg like she understood the assignment. A Darkseeker hit me from the side and I put it down with a muzzle strike, a facefull of buckshot and kept moving towards the light.
The light was our safety, at least for now.
Obviously, I just watched “I Am Legend” and ripped off that scene for my intro, but that visual is exactly what’s in my head when I pick up the Mossberg AfterShock SPX and load it up with some Federal 00 buckshot and let it eat.
Aftershock SPX Specs
I’ll play the gun writer game for a minute and give you the specs on this badass little apocalypse rig.
I guess you’d classify the Mossberg 990 AfterShock SPX as an “other” firearm. It’s not a pistol but has a grip for one hand. It’s not a shotgun at least in the traditional sense as a shoulder-fired weapon. I call this gun badass, pure and simple. When you see it your mind flashes to the old sawed-off shotgun an old-timey bartender would have on hand for when it got a little too rowdy.
The 990 version is a gas-operated 12-gauge semi-automatic “other” firearm that will handle five 3-inch shells in the magazine. The Cerakoted receiver is optics ready and the forend has an integrated heat shield and several M-Lok slots for lights and lasers like my setup has.
The weight comes in about 6 pounds before any accessories are added and you can rest that weight with a single- or double-point sling plugged into a few different QD port options.
The Aftershock uses the same gas system as its full-size 990 brother, so there’s no need to worry about reliability when the Darkseekers start waking up. One point I want to address on this gas system. In the past I’ve had some cycling issues with similar short, light shotties when going from full 3-inch loads to lighter 2 ¾-inch skeet loads. We shot this 990 Aftershock with 00 buckshot and 3-inch slugs (spicy), and then we had a literal blast shooting skeet from the hip or one handed with the #7 loads.
Uncle T’s Take
I have two separate setups in mind for integrating the Mossberg 990 Aftershock SPX into my lineup.
First, sitting against the nightstand, out of sight due to the small size, riding on top would be an EOTech EFLX CE red dot and out front a visible red laser and a bright af Surefire M640DFT Pro to blind anyone dumb enough to break into the house or melt any Darkseekers I might bump into. This very capable package loaded with Federal 00 Buck could handle just about anything that goes bump in the night.
The second setup would be a very clean 990 AfterShock, at most with an EOTech EFLX. This slick little package will ride in my rear seat back pocket. The 990 AfterShock is completely hidden behind the seat but is quickly accessible for the random trash panda attack.
Bottom line, every red-blooded American should have the modern version of the sawed-off shotgun we see in the movies behind the bar or ready to deploy from the shotgun position of the stagecoach out west.
