Zombie Guns

Recently I did my annual piece on the new shotguns I saw while hiking the aisles at the 2012 SHOT and SCI shows. It will run in the July/August issue of the magazine. As usual, there was more than I could include in one article of less-than-epic length, so I just covered the guns I thought you would find most interesting. Well, most of them. There were some guns that just didn’t seem to be a great fit for Shooting Sportsman’s elevated status, so I’ll sneak them in here.

If you have any teenagers in the house, you well know that the biggest threat to their existence a year or two ago was the vampire. Now it is the zombie. Every goggle-eyed teen is constantly involved in pixel-to-pixel battle zapping zombies on the iPad, iPhone or iSomething.

As these kids grow up, they still want video games, but for real. Zombie-themed fun shoots with real ammo are cropping up. Zombie Industries (http://zombieindustries.com), sells 3-D zombie torso targets that bleed realistically (in so far as that’s possible with a zombie) when hit with shot from a shotshell or a rifle bullet. This is a new sport, and obviously you will need a new gun to participate.

Mossberg obliges with its new ZMB (get it: ZoMBie) line of two pumps and a rifle. The rifle is the Mossberg 464 .30-.30 lever-action carbine tricked out in AR15-style black plastic with the “ZMB” initial logo in bile green on the receiver. The pumps are based on Mossberg’s classic 500 action. One is simply a black plastic 20”-barrel version with an 8-shot magazine and the green logo. It probably would stop a zombie, but it’s not the one you want.

You want the Mossberg 500 Chainsaw ZMB (http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://cheaperthandirt.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Mossberg_Chainsaw.jpg&imgrefurl=http://cheaperthandirt.com/blog/%3Ftag%3Dzombie&h=381&w=1128&sz=770&tbnid=Iw2i1iq7XGf2BM:&tbnh=37&tbnw=109&zoom=1&docid=YQECPWdPwITF9M&sa=X&ei=KfJ5T5arKYW60QGTm-GgDQ&ved=0CFkQ9QEwBg&dur=5670). Zombies and chainsaws go together like double cheeseburgers and coronaries. With this gun, you will really be ready when they come to get you. It has a compact 18-1/2” barrel for working in tight spaces like graveyards and a six-shot magazine in case the first five don’t make the living dead less than living. On the front is a flash-hider/door-buster standoff device for really up-close work where it gets gooey. The back end has only a pistol grip, leaving your other hand free to fend off the attack or to crank in another shot with the overhand/overbarrel pump handle. Mossberg calls the overbarrel pump grip “chainsaw style.” Freddie Kruger would love it. You don’t think that a zombie pumpgun would be normal, do you? It is, of course, paranormal. They even include a laser and light combo because they know you will be doing most of your work at night.

The Mossberg 500 Chainsaw ZMB proudly displays the green ZMB zombie logo on its black frame. The list price to defend yourself from the unmentionable is $614.

Of course all of this is silly. You don’t really need a shotgun for zombies. We need shotguns for birds. Angry Birds. The ones that jump out of your iPad and thumb their noses at you in that dumb Angry Bird game. That’s what real bird guns are for. It’s time to get even. Lock ’n’ load. Well, maybe boots off, beer open first. We can’t go off on this stuff half-cocked.