By Jeff Johnston, FE Hunting & Shooting Editor
If I go on a $35,000 Cape buffalo hunt, I’d hope to take one of FE’s Rigby Rogue collaboration rifles. A $500 Mossberg Patriot .375 wouldn’t be my first choice, not because it wouldn’t kill any buffalo as dead as dirt, but because it isn’t refined, and part of the romanticism while sipping sundowners in that land of enchantment is bragging about guns by the act of merely bringing them. The Mossberg, on the other hand, is a bagger not a bragger.
Via personal experience, however, I tell you what the Mossberg .375 is good for: A moose hunt near Sasquatch’s home in remote British Columbia where it will be tossed in and out of aluminum jon boats like a plastic paddle; shoved into float planes; stored atop wood piles outside at night so the scope won’t fog the next morning; drug through the alders, muskeg swamps, and mountain rocks for a dozen days or more. It’ll be frozen and thawed twice daily, thoroughly soaked and sun-dried many times, banged up like a ‘79 Ford Bronco and scratched to holy hell. Eventually it may be called upon to actually shoot something. Honestly, there’s something to be said for a rifle that you don’t have to baby; something to be said for a gun that if it gets confiscated by Canadian customs because you forgot to mention you had a Public Intox when you were 21, it won’t be the end of the world.
Mossberg’s Patriot Synthetic Cerakote model features a fluted bolt, a two position (Rem. 700-style) safety, an indestructible (plastic) stock that I actually did use as a boat paddle a few times; a damn effective recoil pad and, perhaps the rifle’s best single feature, an excellent trigger that’s adjustable down to 2.5 pounds. It’s got a 3-round detachable box magazine—that I don’t love on a dangerous game gun (for fear that it could pop out as I’m racing for the nearest tree) and a pointable 22-inch barrel that comes with adjustable sights. Normally I can’t stand sights on rifles that will forever be conjoined with a scope, but on this beater .375, while hunting in the aforementioned conditions, the backup sights are great. The entire thing weighs just 6.5 pounds–which is very light for a .375. Recoil is about as you would imagine: Somewhere between a blow to the shoulder with a sledgehammer and a left hook from your former Golden Gloves grandpa. But this isn’t a gun for plinking, so I’ll take the recoil in trade for the light weight.
On the range, the original Patriot I was sent as a test sample was a little strange: It would put the first two shots in the same hole then fly the third shot. I only had two types of ammo to choose from—both Hornady—as .375 Ruger is not all that popular down at my small town hardware store, and both varieties performed similarly. But because when hunting it’s the first shot that matters, I had no qualms about taking it to British Columbia, where on the fifth day of banging around in various boats, I center-punched a bull in the shoulder, bagging him with one shot.
At any rate, when I returned home I requested another test rifle from Mossberg, because out of the four I have tested in various calibers over the past few years, all grouped very well. So they sent me another one, and it performed much better from the bench despite my obvious flinching that was mitigated somewhat by a lead sled and ibuprofen.
Quite seriously though, this blue-collar Patriot in .375 makes the perfect camp gun in bear country, a moose rifle any time, or even a rifle for a safarist who’d rather buy another buffalo tag while in Africa rather than spending it beforehand on a gold-engraved rifle to baby.
Cost: $500
Pros: Tough as hell; can use as a paddle; backup sights are standard; lightweight
Cons: Kicks; ugly as a warthog; don’t love the detachable mag in .375
