Mossberg's Patriot Rifle Toasts a Decade of Production

Affiliate Disclosure: This page contains affiliate links. We earn from qualifying purchases.

Guide Lucas Paugh and I spotted the mature blacktail buck while he was crossing through cabernet sauvignon vines at Steinbeck Winery.

Through the spotting scope he looked good, with a boxy frame still in velvet and four points on one side—a rare feature on coastal blacktails. When the buck turned his head, we saw that his main beams were a bit short and thin, but this was certainly the best buck we had seen all morning.

“What do you think?” Lucas asked. “Depends on how you look at him,” I said. “Head-on he’s a great buck. In profile he looks like he could use another year.”

Lucas nodded, and I knew he felt the same. We left the deer, but later in the day we stumbled into him again in the same patch of grapevines. Perhaps the angle of the sun was slightly different or maybe the heat of midday blurred our vision, but the boxy four-point looked more impressive than he had a few hours earlier.

Vineyard Bucks

Stalking big bucks in vineyards is one of Lucas’s specialties. His favorite tactic is to slip into the open row beside the target buck and, keeping the wind in your face and utilizing vines as cover, creep within archery range. But that wouldn’t work on our hunt. There were does and young bucks on both sides of the boxy four, and they’d bolt the moment we started our stalk. The buck was too far away for an ethical shot from our current position, so we’d have to move, and that meant maneuvering to the opposite side of the block of vines.

The plan worked perfectly. Because each row of grapes in Steinbeck Vineyard is numbered, we could pinpoint the buck’s location. Lucas and I knew he was last seen standing between rows 64 and 65, so we eased into that row hoping to find our buck.

We did, and he was within range, but he had bedded down. Lucas and I eased into position and saw the deer’s ears and antlers overtop a low rise. I settled the Mossberg Patriot, chambered in .270 Winchester, into position and waited. The shot was 115 yards, a simple task for that rifle/cartridge combination. I just needed the deer to stand.

A half-hour passed and the buck didn’t move. The heat of day sucked the last of the moisture from the August air and even the buzzing flies left us. I watched through the Leupold VX-5HD scope as the buck chewed his cud in the shade of a vine which was heavy with fat, purple grapes. The blacktail was in a state of repose, his dark eyes slowly blinking under the weight of his velvet rack. He seemed content to stay there all day.

Forty-fives minutes. I looked at that velvety rack again. The beams seemed to stop short and the front fork was  weak. Maybe this deer needed another year to mature. Or perhaps he was past his prime: I hadn’t gotten a good look at his body from the other side and wasn’t sure I was capable of accurately judging the age of blacktail bucks on the hoof, anyway. I shifted behind the rifle, adjusted my grip, and slid my face back onto the Mossberg’s walnut stock.

An hour into the standoff I was getting restless. I even heard Lucas move behind me, and he has the patience borne from years of bowhunting. The boxy four, for his part, seemed perfectly content to whittle away the warm midday hours in the shade of the vines. Twice I am certain the buck fell fully asleep.

After an hour and twenty minutes Lucas and I called it. We just weren’t certain that the buck was old enough to harvest, and at the current pace of things we might be standing in the vineyard until sundown before the buck decided to move. We slipped out of the row and headed back to the winery’s headquarters for lunch.

History and Tradition

The rifle I was carrying was Mossberg’s push-feed Patriot bolt-action which turned 10 years old in 2025. Like their popular shotgun brands, the Patriot has earned a reputation for providing rock-solid performance at a reasonable price. The Patriot arrived at a time when budget rifles were all the rage. Ruger released the first American rifle in 2012, and in 2013 Remington came out with the 783. Mossberg was a bit late to the game, but their Patriot rifle proved to be a winner. The budget rifle revolution proved to the hunting public that even affordable guns could outshoot some higher-priced rifles designed just a decade prior. Building affordable, accurate rifles is a byproduct of modern machining technology.

For the Steinbeck hunt I selected a Mossberg Patriot Walnut rifle which comes with a detachable box magazine, fluted barrel, spiral fluted bolt and LBA adjustable trigger for $721. Though it’s available in a variety of calibers including relative newbies like both the 6.5 Creedmoor and PRC, I elected to hunt with a Patriot chambered in .270 Winchester.

The .270 turned 100 years old in 2025, and although modern cartridges with heavy-for-caliber bullets earn the lion’s share of attention these days, the .270 is a classic big-game cartridge that’s accounted for innumerable heads of game around the world. Cartridge historians love to debate whether it’s based on a necked-down .30-03 or .30-06 case (which are virtually identical, but the ’03 is the true parent). Paternity questions aside, the .270 has been among the most popular hunting rounds of the last hundred years. Sure, it had its champion in Mr. O’Connor, but the cartridge stands on its own merits and doesn’t require propping up. It’ll push a 130-grain bullet between 3,000 and 3,150 feet per second depending upon barrel length and other factors, which means the .270 shoots plenty flat for most hunting out to 500 yards or so. It’s debatable as an elk cartridge (I think it gets the nod) and is a splendid sheep, goat, deer, caribou and antelope cartridge. And its mild recoil makes it a joy to shoot.

An Ode to a Classic

There are writers who have criticized the .270’s accuracy. I discussed the notion of the .270’s “inaccuracy” with Craig Boddington over a glass of wine following a day of hunting at Steinbeck and Craig has found that the .270 is capable of very good accuracy. Although my pool of experience is far more limited than Mr. Boddington’s, I will say that I agree with his conclusion. I’ve owned three .270s and tested several more, and at least half (including the Mossberg) were capable of sub-MOA accuracy. That’s good enough for hunting all big game at any responsible distance. It’s also worth noting that Craig’s wife Donna, who is also an experienced hunter and gifted writer, has carried her MG Arms .270 Winchester all over the world and has had great success with that rifle on a wide variety of game.

On paper the .270 doesn’t look all that appealing. Hunting bullets are limited to about 150 grains, which don’t offer the same aerodynamics as a 143-grain .264-inch bullet from a 6.5 Creedmoor or 6.5 PRC. The .270 is also a substantial step below the various 7mm magnums in terms of power, and it’s also the least powerful of the now-growing .277 family of cartridges that includes the .270 Weatherby Magnum, .27 Nosler, .277 Fury and the 6.8 Western.

What the .270 has going for it, though, is a hundred years of load development and testing, a broad array of suitable hunting bullets, sufficient energy for most big game to moderate ranges and a flat trajectory. And, as previously mentioned, it doesn’t beat the snot out of you.

We raised a glass to the Mossberg and the .270, but before we could celebrate too much, there was still work to do. The boxy four vanished to parts unknown and my deer tag was still unfilled.

Searching For a Fork

There’s nothing more classic in coastal California blacktail hunting than a big, mature fork horn. The average mature buck in the region carries two or three points per side (not counting brow tines), and although a big two-point doesn’t impress everyone, it does impress me. We don’t get a lot of big fork horn bucks in the Midwest.

I’d had my eye out for a fork even before we spotted the boxy four, but on the second day of the hunt I found exactly what I was searching for—a mature, heavy two-point buck as classically Californian as surfboards and fault lines. The buck was with a group of three others and when they saw us they disappeared into a row of syrah grapes.

Lucas and I pulled another flanking maneuver that led us back into the cabernet sauvignon section, and after carefully checking row-by-row, we found the fork-horn feeding in the shade of the vines. We stalked down the opposite row, using the tight latticework of vines as a shield, and popped out within 150 yards of the deer.

Lucas crawled into position and I followed, trying (and failing) to avoid the brutal spines of the stray yellow starthistle plant. As I lay prone, I felt the stab of a thistle spine in my hand and another in my knee. I cleared away the ones I could see and laid down only to feel three sharp stabs just above the belt.

When I had settled on the rifle, Lucas elbowed me. “He’s bedded.”

Here we were again, watching a mature buck dozing in the midmorning heat while we waited for a shot. But things were different this time. I was certain this was the buck that I wanted, and, perhaps more importantly, I was laid out comfortably (save the thistle spines) in the prone position. I could hold my position for a long time if that was what the hunt required.

I watched the buck through the scope. He was bedded just in front of another younger buck that was still in velvet, and I noticed that the target buck had what appeared to be a large growth under his eye. I couldn’t tell if he was blind on that side, but I did notice that he kept his eye partially closed and seemed inclined to turn his head farther in our direction than his velvet-antlered companion.

Ten minutes passed, then fifteen. The buck remained in his bedded position, but the angle of the sun was changing and, as a result, the shade evaporated. It was clear that the buck was uncomfortable, and after twenty minutes he stood up.

Moment of Truth

Lucas gave the sign to shoot and I fired, hitting the buck in the lungs. He went down almost where he stood, and with my guide patting me on the back I covered the buck until I was certain he wasn’t going anywhere. Then I smiled, unloaded the rifle, and started plucking thistle spines from my belly.

The buck was very large and heavy, a classic, mature California forkhorn. He did have a hard mass growing under his eye, though we never determined what caused the growth. Lucas and I chalked it up to the hardscrabble life of a free-range buck living in dry, steep country.

The Mossberg worked, and so did the .270. That should come as no surprise, though, because both the rifle and cartridge have a long and successful track record. When the sun set, we sat under the rising full moon in the dining area at the rear of the main house, savoring the coolness of the evening and the crisp, complex taste of Steinbeck’s The Crash wine. We lifted a toast to the day, to the deer, and to classic rifles and cartridges.

---