When a firearms company that hasn’t produced a handgun since Franklin Delano Roosevelt was president decides to reenter the pistol biz, it’s going to draw some attention.

When it’s a company with a reputation for building good quality guns at blue-collar prices, and the handgun market niche that they’re entering is the red-hot subcompact 9mm segment, it’s going to get a lot of attention.

Therefore it’s probably no surprise that there was a steady line of people standing in the wind and blowing grit of SHOT Industry Range Day, waiting to get their turn behind the trigger of Mossberg’s new MC1sc 9mm pocket blaster.

Upon getting to the front of said line, I found a surprisingly well-constructed and solid-feeling little gun with a number of smart design features.

The sights apparently use Sig Sauer-spec dovetails (specifically, Sig #8 sights) which opens a wide variety of existing and future aftermarket alternatives. The mag catch is reversible, and the translucent mags… “Clear-Count™” in Mossberg-ese …come in six- and seven-round flavors, distinguished by whether the floorplate is flat or contains a finger rest.

When asked if the MC1sc took Glock 43 mags, the response was “Those magazines fit, yes” which is probably more diplomatic than “We designed the gun from the get-go to take common magazines with abundant aftermarket options.” The magazine catch is reversible, in case they put your right hand on the wrong side.

Trigger pull was about what you’d expect, and the reset was short and positive. The gun comes from the factory with a safety-tabbed, flat-faced trigger that seems to look an awful lot like the Overwatch Precision unit you’d pay extra to put in a Glock 43. In my experience, the flat face makes a big difference on these little nines with their popsicle-stick-size grips that punish errors in trigger finger placement with harsh accuracy penalties.

Mossberg was careful to note that they’ve designed the gun to be stripped for cleaning without having to pull the trigger. The way it works is that the slide cover plate can be removed with thumb pressure alone, allowing the striker to be removed before pulling the slide off the gun.

The pistol is also offered with a simple crossbolt-style safety in the frame behind the trigger. I was personally less than wowed by the ergonomics of it, but if someone had a ton of hours using the safety on a Maverick 88, they’d probably feel right at home with it.

I’m looking forward to putting some serious rounds downrange through a review gun, but initial impressions are favorable. It’s a solid-feeling little pistol with a bunch of smart design features. The fact that “sc” seems to be a suffix indicating “subcompact” as a modifier to “MC1” hints that if the reception in the market is good, this might just be the first of a larger lineup.

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