You obviously liked Mossberg’s FLEX modular shotgun. So much so, you selected it for one of last year’s Readers Choice awards as best new scattergun. And we really liked the FLEX-equipped .22LR Plinksters we saw at the SHOT Show. I wondered how long it would be before they hit the shelves. Because a lot of SHOT Show debutantes (*cough* Arsenal Strike One *cough*) take a long time to really come out and dance. Not these rifles, though. They’re already here . . .
Mossberg calls them the FLEX-22 (shown here) and the FLEX-22 Youth (at the top of the post) and they both have free-floated barrels. The Youth model comes with a short FLEX buttstock, grooved receiver scope rail, and a 10-round magazine. The standard model FLEX-22 comes with a shorter barrel, flash hider/muzzle brake, 25-round magazine, removable Picatinny rail, and a 6-position AR-style stock.
Astute readers will notice that I roundly criticized the practice of attaching AR buttstocks to PTR-91s, and I’m not sure how I feel about slapping them onto a version of my very first rifle, a Marlin Glenfield Model 60. But I know I like the FLEX option on these rifles, which lets you fit them perfectly (and cheaply) to the younger shooters in your family.
I’m looking forward to trying one out, even if I have to buy it myself. The MSRP for these rifles is $261 to $275, and the street price should be much cheaper than the 10/.22 Takedown which is its only real competition.
Looks nice, although I am no fan of the AR style collapsible stock on most things, either. Can the user switch out the stock? Or is it the only one that will mate with it?
Well if you want too learn too be a machinist anythings possible.
Yes, this is the whole pont of the FLEX system. There are a lot of options available, all switching out is as easy as using a qd.
Cool, been wanting to pick up another semi .22lr, 10/22 is nice but always looking for more “toys” for plinking and whatnot!
Not From Mossberg: Good .22 Rifles
The old 151K’s are a heap of fun and work well.
Not From Mossberg: Good .22 Rifles*
*Except old 151Ks
My mossberg plinkster will eat anything I feed it. It will also shoot a nickle size group at 50 yards with crappy ammo.
Oh, and would be nice if the mags were interchangeable. Are they?
Yes
Lookin’ better and better.
This is the firearms equivalent of continuing to breed unabated during a famine. We need Obama (obviously) to place a hiatus on the manufacture and sale of any firearms that consume rimfire ammunition until stocks of rimfire ammunition recover to pre-panic levels.
Please tell me that was sarcasm?
I wonder if you can throw the pistol grip option for the shotgun on here and basically have a 16 inch barrel pistol?
Anywho, aside from being able to fire this with the stock removed (advantage mossberg), the 10/12 TD (which I own and love: so biased opinion alert!) beats this thing in every other category accept adjustability for youth shooters.
I’ll take the quality and reliability factor over mossbergs .22’s any day. I love me some 500’s, 835’s and 930’s, but their 22’s, not so much.
Yes. Any FLEX stock, including the shotgun pistol grip, will fit on any FLEX long gun. I’m not sure why you would want to, but that shouldn’t necessarily stop you. 🙂
“Because a lot of SHOT Show debutantes take a long time to really come out and dance.”
How true.
On one end of the spectrum, you have the chinese making tens of thousands items a day and yes, they are small little devices, easily stored and shipped but when they announce a product and people flood to the stores, APPLE, can deliver them from the inventory in the back room.
But the other side of the spectrum is gun makers showing vapor at SHOT show and then customers are not just waiting in line, like the Apple store, they are waiting for any Glock 42’s or XDs 9’s to arrive at all at Gander or Cabelas. I live right between two Gander Mtn stores and niether have yet to get the 42 in let alone have one to fight over. I’d like to hold one before I buy.
Why is the marketing and delivery of guns so off kilter compared to other industry supply chains?
Anylists, please speak up.
Apple – little electronic gimcracks that are largely the equivalent of a print process that are very cheap to make and with a HUGE markup and a HUGE volume.
Firearms – a REAL manufactured product with apparently a patheticly small markup (at least at retail) and smallish volume.
That may or may not be true, but there’s still no excuse for announcing a product when you’re months or sometime a year (I’m looking at you, Kel Tec) from being able to ship them in any reliable numbers. It’s inexcusable. Kel Tec isn’t the only offender here – they’re just the most infamous.
It can’t do much for your reputation to be labeled a purveyor of vaporware, so why the hell not crank out a significant quantity of a new product BEFORE sending out the press releases? It’s beyond me.
Yea, extolling the wonders and virtues of a new product, then adding it will not be available for __ number of months/years tends to make me soggy and hard to light!!!
quality of their rifles aside (since i have no firsthand knowledge), the biggest problem i see is that you can only get the barrel with the (described as such on the website) muzzle brake on the model that comes with the adjustable stock. If that’s truly a threaded barrel and not a welded on muzzle brake, then it would be nice to have that option on the fixed stock.
wore out my first Marlin Model 60, bought a 795, with shorter Magazine! As a Rabbit hunter who hunts heavy brush I like Smaller Magazines as they don’t hang up in the brush as bad. Release could use some work, in brush you may find, magazine release was some how bumped , here magazine , where are you , have to paint them Orange! only problem I see with the stock is one of cheek meld, kind of uncomfortable, for new shooters, As a Vietnam Vet with a Jamming rifle makes me wonder why any one would emulate that piece of Shit!
Do not misread me, I have an improved version and it works swell
I like it, much better than an over-plasticized faux ar-15 shell.
This looks pretty neat for an inexpensive plinker.
Wonder if the scope rail is removable. Give me iron sights…
The 702 has problems eating certain hollow points. If they fixed that this modular version MIGHT be worth the extra dough. Plinksters are hitting for around 125 most places, with the 25 rd mags selling for 40 if you can find them.
It would be fun to see a serious roundup of middle of the road .22s. At the risk of embarrassing the new stuff you might include a nice example of an old Stevens tube-fed .22 and a few other old standards. Hmm?
Greetings Chris Dumm,
One question, if there “already here” where are they? Seven (7) months after you wrote this article and no one has them in stores or online. You can’t even order one through Mossberg. Maybe a follow-up article is in order?
Correct me if im wrong here……but isnt this just a plinkster 702 in a different stock? From what I hear the plnkster 702 will fit into this stock and the 715T stock as well??? If so how hard is it to find just the stock?
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