If you are a prepper, backpacker or truck gun aficionado it’s time to look for some spare change in your couch. The new Midland Arms Backpack Gun costs all of $150. For less than the price of a coach gun you get a Midland Backpack Shotgun with…
– Interchangeable barrels
– Cocking Indicator that is both visual and tactile (not to be confused with tactical).
– All-steel blued studs pre-installed for QD sling swivels.
– Ambidextrous cheek piece
– Checkered waterproof synthetic stock
– Positive trigger block safety
– Folds in half for easy storage
You can remove the Midland Backpack Gun’s buttpad to access a deep-hole space for a survival kit. The survival kit isn’t included, and I bet a lot of buyers prefer to roll their own.
Currently you can get single-shot shotgun barrels chambered for 12-gauge, 20-gauge, and .410-caliber ammo. Blued barrels are available in barrel lengths of 18.5”, 22″, 24″ and 26″ all accept Beretta choke tubes, modified choke included. Rimfire and centerfire barrels are on the way.
It’s even well made. The Midland Arms Backpack Gun’s break-action folding mechanism is Skippy smooth and locks as tightly as the jar’s lid.
Machining and finish are more than acceptable. The shotgun’s trigger is not great, it’s not bad, it’s not disappointing, it’s not objectionable and the entire break-open breech-loader costs less than a Geissele trigger.
At $150 MSRP you’d be crazy not to buy one and monitor the company site for caliber conversions for handguns. (The company rep said they’re going to fire larger and larger calibers until the thing breaks. Our kinda guy.)
Review to follow.
I’d handsomely pay more than $150 for a shotgun that uses the Burgess folding shotgun mechanics.
So awesome.
Yes. So much yes. Why no company, even old west reproduction gun companies like cimmeron or pietta, have made a reproduction eludes me….and I want a reproduction Merwin Hulbert revolver as well.
Me too, on the Merwin and Hulbert in .44 S&W SPL!
About the “So awesome” gif :
“Excuse me, while I whip this out…”
*snicker*
20 ga. 22 inch tube. All the survival gun you’d ever need.
Sign me up!
Now, if we could just get 50% of school classrooms to keep one (with ONE AND ONLY ONE shell) in a SERIOUSLY SECURE lockbox, you would see school attacks plummet.
Elastic, 5 round cuff on the buttstock. Short of a Beslan that would handle any event in school.
jwm,
I was specifying one shell because that prohibits any student or even a criminal attacker from going on a shooting rampage if they somehow open the lockbox. And yet one shell is good enough when 50% of the classrooms in the entire school have one shell.
For example, if a school has 20 classrooms, they would have 10 shotguns each with one shell for defensive purposes. If there are only one or two spree killers, they are not going to accomplish very much with 10 shotguns ready to shoot back.
So, uh, country of origin? The mechanism looks very similar to the similarly-priced Yildiz shotguns I’ve seen at Academy.
Turkey by Kahn Arms. I’m not sure what, if any, manufacturing is done in the US. The good thing is Midland is very supportive of the customers, so if you communicate with Midland to say, “Hey, I think these shotguns should have adjustable rear sights on them for shooting slugs better.” or “I want a centerfire barrel in .460 S&W so I can plink with my .45 Colt handloads and go hunting with my .460 S&W Buffalo Bore ammo” they’ll listen and probably do it.
Want one…. but nope. Made in a country that hates the west. I’ll save more and buy American.
Turkey is hardly a country that hates the West. It has been one of the most modern countries in the Middle East for over one hundred years. Muslims, Christians and Jews get along fine there.
The present leader is trying to strip his people of their rights, but that’s their problem.
I don’t like the Turks either, will never bother with a Canik, but I like this single shot so much I’m willing to swallow it and buy one. I’m not sure if Kahn will be the one making the rifle barrels though. I don’t think Kahn Arms makes anything other than shotguns, so those rifle barrels may be US made.
I already have a Mossberg o/u made by Kahn and I’m looking at selling it to get this and a barrel or two when they come out.
Pat H. You REALLY have not been keeping up with current events at all. Ataturk is dead, buried and forgotten.
“One of the most modern countries in the Middle East”
Having a 19th century culture among Iron Age throwbacks is not a ringing endorsement.
Yildiz was the first name that popped in my head. Makes me wonder if a direct knockoff by them is in the works.
🤠
I would love to see it in 300BLk
I found out about Midland Arms thanks to the ZRUS channel on youtube. When I watched it I instantly became interested in these for the rifle barrels they’re coming out with this year. Not only do I think these are the successor to the H&R Handi rifles, but I think these are an improvement.
No longer do you have to deal with cocking a funky hammer underneath the scope, the striker cocks every time you close the action and you can re-cock it faster and easier if the primer doesn’t go off on the first shot. I like the adjustable LOP, I like that it folds up like an M6 Scout, I like that the barrels don’t require fitting to the frame at the factory (from what I can gather, it’s a drop in fit like the Thompson Centers are), I like the hollowed out stock, but most of all… I LOVE THE PRICE!
I just hope Midland makes lots of barrels for it because I want a .327, .357, .460 S&W, .223, .308, and .45-70. Oh, and I want all the barrels threaded.
How you feeling about the availability of all those additional barrels now … 3 years down the road and NOTHING?
already got my savage 24 in .357 magnum over 20 ga. Fits nice in a pack in 3 pieces.
Nice review. Thanks
The H&R fanbois will be eating this up at 150.
I gots 3 single pipes of different makes. Always room for 1 more. Or more.
I will even still hunt with a single shot on occasion. They’re just fun.
$129 at Tombstone Tactical.
I feel that if Walmart dumps the shitty Hatfields for this and stocks some of the extra barrels, they’ll sell millions of these and probably go for $100 on Black Friday.
This looks like it might fit nicely in a back pack along with the KelTec Sub 2000.
Product improvement:
(1) Shorten the fore-end grip roughly 1 inch so that it will not hit the pistol grip when you collapse it.
(2) Mill out a slot in the bottom of the fore-end grip that is large enough for the trigger guard to seat in there when folded.
These two improvements will allow the shotgun to fold even tighter and cost almost nothing in terms of manufacturing costs.
And if Midland Arms wants to really hit a home run, extend the hinge down ever so slightly so that the barrel has enough clearance to fold into a slight indent in the pistol grip and slightly deeper indent in the butt stock! Not only would that make the shotgun much more compact when folded, it would also help prevent external forces from torquing the barrel hinge with the barrel being seated in the butt stock. And make that indent in the butt stock have a grasping capability so that the barrel does not float out of the folded position.
If Midland implemented all three of my product improvements, I would purchase one for every vehicle in my family — and I suspect just about everyone else would as well!!!
TTaG staff: I am entirely serious about these improvements. If you have Midland’s ear, please share these suggestions with them.
Look on You Tube for Walmart Hatfield shotgun. People have done exactly what you have suggested.
Oooohhh myyyyy. I had never heard of the Hatfield break-action shotgun. I am going to be actively searching for one of those in 20 gauge if I cannot purchase a Midland Arms break-action shotgun for a similar price.
And yes, I will be modifying it to fold all the way to the butt stock as well as reducing the barrel length to about 22 inches.
I am really excited about this. Thank you for the heads-up dph!
You’re very welcome.
“Look on You Tube for Walmart Hatfield shotgun.”
Oh, yeah… 🙂
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25bMUjYmd0M
Send them a message. They just might to that if the hinge has the capable range of motion. My opinion? You’re not going to get it more compact than what it already is.
I would love to get one of these chambered in .357 Magnum as well.
“I would love to get one of these chambered in .357 Magnum as well.”
Since it’s a single-shot, chamber inserts have little downside.
Neat thing about .22 inserts in a 12 gauge, you get a bit of an inherent acoustic suppressor effect, without the stamp and wait…
Good point on barrel containing sound, but you also gain weight with barrel sleeve. I have an 18″
MCA 30-30 Win. sleeve in 20 gauge, and that sleeve by itself weighs a bit over a pound. Imagine a .22 bore in 12 gauge barrel – my guess would be double that weight, easily. The .410 for small and/or ‘seasoned citizens. who need lightweight protection.
The separate hinged barrel sounds like a better proposal. The 12 would be a natural in hiking areas with bear, and the 20 would be great in upland bird – rabbit locations.
I tried the .22 adapter in my 12 gauge. Using cci quiet LR ammo, bang was as loud as a normal .22 – think the big empty shotgun barrel greatly increases the sound from the 3″ barrel on the adapter. I too thought it would make it quieter…
One of the awesomely super awesome things that one could do with these is they could register the frame as an SBR/SBS, cut a shotgun or rifle barrel down to 10-12 inches, but still have a bunch of extra barrels that they could use for hunting, skeet, trap, etc.
Or just chop a barrel down and hide it somewhere in the barn in a PVC tube and never let the ATF know because in the future they’ll probably reclassify all single shot firearms as machine guns.
Love a danged single shot shotgun!
One of my most used utility guns as a kid was a 20 gauge springfield.
Snakes, raccoons, possums, armadillos, and one bobcat to its credit.
Not to mention lots of tasty squirrels.
My favorite at the moment is Winchester 37 in 16 gauge.
Cant go wrong with single shot.
I just have a hard time believing ANYthing a so-called “gun-writer” says when he refers to shotguns as “.12 ga.” or “.20 ga.” Here, I’ll spell it out for you: there should not be decimal points there, these are not fractional dimensions like caliber measurements!
I noticed that too. Some folks are just too eager to use decimal points.
I like it. Would be a bang up, Turkey hunting gun………. now is it 2 3/4 or 3?
Both
Love my TC contender, but the barrels are so damn expensive. Love my H&R but don’t want to send it in to have barrels fitted. If this starts coming in 20g with a shorter barrel than 26″ with self fitted xtra barrels around a $100, I’ll buy 2 or 3 in a heartbeat
Another vote for the .357 Mag/.38 Special barrel. I don’t need another single shot in 12 or 20, and i have no use for .410 which is a handgun round. But a lightweight packable in .357 could be used for plinking and light hunting, and could stop a baddie in a pinch.
Looks like a great idea. I see the best things about this as the interchangeable barrels and the low cost.
Lots of other shotguns are easy to take down to put into a backpack, so folding to put in a backpack is no big deal. A double-barreled coach gun disassembles in seconds into pieces that are even EASIER to fit into a backpack (no need to worry about a hinge getting in the way or breaking, with coach guns). Okay, it may take two or three seconds more to reassemble a coach gun than to snap the hinged Midland gun closed, but it’s still quick, about five seconds total for a coach gun.
A coach gun also has the advantage of two barrels instead of one. Sure, two barrels weigh more than one, but in 12-gauge, you’ll be glad to have the extra weight to tone down the recoil! The Midland 12-gauge 18.5″ model only weighs 4.4 pounds, and the recoil from firing a 4.4 pound 12-gauge shotgun will be downright PAINFUL!
The .410 version is nice (why is it 1.25″ longer than the 12-gauge version with the same length barrel?), but I already own a Savage Model 42 Takedown, with a .22 WMR barrel over a .410 barrel. This Savage Model 42 breaks down into two lightweight pieces in seconds, for backpacking! The external hammer on the Savage Model 42 makes it slow to fire, though.
Is the Midland shotgun drilled and tapped for an optic rail to mount a red dot sight for the shotgun barrels, or a scope for the rifle barrels? My Savage Model 42 is drilled and tapped for an EGW rail, which I used to mount a 1-4x scope (1x when using it as a shotgun, 4x when using it as a rifle).
My Stoeger Double Defense (the tactical version of the Stoeger coach gun) also has rails for red dot sights, lights, and lasers (the rails are removable if you don’t like them).
So, I’ll wait to see what accessories Midland comes out with as far as rail mounts, rifle barrels, etc. for this gun before making a decision. A shorter 20-gauge version would also be nice, as a 4.4 pound 12-gauge has just too much recoil!
I used to have a Beretta folding single shot in 20 Ga. Nice little gun, paid 25 bucks for it at Montgomery ward, and, it had a walnut stock!
For those of you in the North West, BiMart has “Pardner” pump action shotguns on sale for $129. 12 Ga. with 3″ chamber.
I may get one, Iv’e been looking for a cheap trunk gun, that won’t make me cry too much if it’s stolen out of my car.
The Midland folding shotgun looks pretty neat. It would be great for the purpose listed, but not so much for self defense. Single shot doesn’t cut it!
The .410 doesn’t seem to be threaded for chokes. Maybe that is because the only one currently offered is the 18.5″ barrel?
I’ve never owned a .410 but I have been thinking of getting one for pest control. A low cost single shot would be just the ticket.
Since the 410 does not carry a lot of shot, most offerings are in full choke only. This may not apply in expensive guns.
Picked up one, 12 gauge 18.5 barrel. Added a sling and set of choke tubes – ready for some Spring turkey gobblers! It is a 3″ chamber btw.
Compared to the Hatfield, much better made, lighter trigger pull, think I’ll add a survival kit inside the hollow Midland stock (added weight) – yeah I have both, heck I’ve spent more on pellet rifles…. See link for a pic – http://www.go2gbo.com/forums/attachments/shotguns-wing-shooting/198610d1516648070-midland-vs-hatfield-singleshot-comparison-p1000475.jpg
I had the same thought, would be great for the long walks into the turkey areas. I’ll be picking one of these up this week. What turkey choke/brand (x-full) did you use and how did it pattern at ranges. Also what shell/load? Thanks
A single shot is just nice for a woods gun, light and nimble. I have a old savage 410 tube that fits a 20 ga barrel. This gun would be ideal to team up with that. I will be having one for the fall.
Finely got my Midland Backpacker 18.5 inch 12ga. Shoots great. With the factory mod choke it patterns good enough to take a turkey @ 30 yards. Solid built. Really like it, but the Turkeys won’t 🙂
*** Anybody try an XF Turkey choke yet? and what brand/ammo.
As soon as I say this, I had to have it. I do a lot of deer hunting in thick brush and swamps. Toteing around a bigger shotgun gets old. This should be perfect. I ordered the 12ga. 18″ barrel. Might fill the stock with so spay foam to help dampen the vibration. Have done this with other guns. Looking forward to the Center fire inserts and barrels.
Just one cool little shotgun.
Man, I love this little sucker. Took it to the range as soon as I received it. Mine is a 12ga 18″. I did not find the recoil to be anywhere near what I expected. Actually much softer. I shot a box of training ammo (25 rounds) and also brought along 15. 00buck. No problem. I will be experimenting with different ammo selections. I also bought a IC, FC, and cylinder choke. I also will be ordering a Carlson extended 00buck choke.
Last night I shot it with a Short lane 8″ 9mm insert. The accuracy was excellent. My first shot at 7 yards went right through the bulls eys and others a half inch group. Obviously no contest at that range. Ended up shooting 25 yds and grouping well, only hindered by the Bead sight. Looking for a mount to place a red dot.
I also used a Caldwell “Past” shoulder pad that absorbed the recoil very well.
This shotgun exceed all expectations. VERY WELL BUILT, solid. Locks up like a bank vault. And just plain fun to shoot.
I bought one of these Midlands in 410 because I am older and wanted a lighter shot gun—-I pick it up tomorrow Sat. and then will try it out—-I like the idea of being able to change barrels on these—will let you know how I like it after having it for awhile and shootint it—-have been waiting a long time to get one of these and after studing all of them on the computer decided the Midland was the one for me
How can I find more info,about other barrels in rifle calibers. I ordered a 12gs Backpacker at my local gunship. I read about the barrels but have not found things more than talk about them.
So far, zip, nada, nuthin.
Customer service says “can’t find a manufacturer to produce extra barrels,” not even extra shotgun barrels.
Something seems seriously wrong if original manufacturer won’t produce even replacement shotgun barrels.
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