Mossberg made the 800 in a variety of configurations; standard, deluxe, mannlicher stock carbine, heavy barrel varmint, and a package gun with a scope. They also made them as "house-brand" guns for a variety of retailers like Coast-To-Coast Hardware, Montgomery Ward, and Western Auto to name a few.
The standard grade 800s were economy/entry-level rifles that were targeting the same market niche as the Remington 788, the lower grade Savage 110 series rifles, and the Winchester 670. They were never very popular in the part of New England where I was raised and they don't seem to have been very popular anywhere that I've lives since. I've owned several of them in the standard, mannlicher, and varmint formats. To my way of thinking, they are truck/farm/loaner type rifles and in 2010, I'd be much more likely to spend my $$ on a new Marlin XL/XS-7 then a used Mossberg 800, unless it was a mannlicher stocked version, since I am a sucker for mannlicher stocked rifles if the price is right.
There is 1 safety concern that I have with the Mossberg 800/810 series and that is the plastic trigger housing. I had a Mossberg 800 in 22-250 that lived in the window rack as my primary coyote rifle for a couple of years. It stayed in the trucks pretty much 24/7/365 and sometime during the hot summer, the rifle got so hot that the trigger housing became distorted (melted), making the rifle unsafe. This is a sample of 1, but I have heard/read that other folks have had the same problem. My rifle fired without having the trigger pulled when I closed the bolt on a live round. When I rotated the bolt to lock it into battery, the firing pin dropped and fired the the cartridge. It was certainly unexpected, an a$$-puckering "aw [bleep]" moment.
I don't know of anyone who makes an after-market synthetic stock for the Mossberg 800 series and doubt that anyone but Richards Micro-Fit offers an after-market stock, since the total production volume of the whole Mossberg 800/810 series can't be very large.
Jeff
