Mossberg MC2sc Compact Carry Pistol
The MC2sc is a nice-looking pistol to boot. The grip texture is effective.
Note the magazine ledge — you can rip a mag out if necessary.
Note the flat-faced trigger and resting pad for your trigger finger “safe area” rest.
I’m not sure causation is at play here, but one good thing at least coincident with the COVID pandemic is the plethora of tiny pistols with punch. Companies have innovated with small 9mm pistols managing to pack double digits of rounds into pocket-sized packages and consumers are buying them in droves.
The latest introduction is the Mossberg MC2sc. Shipping with two magazines, a flat base ultra-compact configuration yielding 11+1 total capacity and an extended version with 14+1, there’s no longer a reason not to carry a 9mm with plenty of capacity. This one even offers a rail cot for a miniature red dot like the Crimson Trace model shown here. If you like, you can stick something up front too as the MC2sc features an accessory rail.
The optics cut sits low and may not require a mounting plate as with this Crimson Trace.
This means the existing sights co-witness perfectly at the bottom of the glass.
The MC2sc is rounded and smoothly contoured in all the
right places for a deep concealment pistol.
Sights
The MC2sc is ready to go for red dot sight use. And it plays well with the included traditional iron sights.
The pistol makes use of traditional dovetail cuts for both front and rear sights, and in them you’ll find standard three (white) dot sights. The rear sight features a “U” notch cut. This is a style really growing on me. I find it significantly faster to acquire a good sight picture compared to traditional square notches. The approach doesn’t lend itself to 50-yard bullseye shooting, but then again, defensive pistols like this one are designed to prioritize fast hits on target. Don’t get me wrong — it’s not like “U” notches aren’t precise. Their precision possibilities are far above and beyond what most of us mere mortals can shoot.
The optics cutout is forward of the rear sight dovetail cut, so you can mix and match red dot and iron sight configurations. The MC2sc doesn’t use one of those combination rear sight/optics mounts. You’ll also notice the heights of the rear sight and optic are carefully coordinated. You can clearly see the iron sights through the bottom of the optic pre-installed on this pistol. It’s visible in the bottom 15% or so of the sight window, so the irons don’t obstruct your view of the red dot.
You can order the MC2sc with standard 3-dot white sights or with tritium night sights.
The field stripping process is brilliant. Without a trigger press, you remove the entire striker assembly, sans tools, so the gun cannot fire during proper maintenance.
Tom can fit all fingers comfortably on the grip with the extended magazine and grip sleeve in place.
Takedown
Field stripping the Mossberg MC2sc is a nifty process requiring no press of a trigger. In a nutshell, the procedure removes the striker assembly completely, allowing easy cleaning of an area prone to collecting excess oil and goo. That’s a good thing, as generally the striker and spring channel should be fairly dry. If exposing all that is part of the regular slide and barrel removal process, you’ll have a nice and clean striker by default.
To disassemble the MC2sc, drop the magazine, ensure the chamber is clear, and lock the slide open. Now press directly inward on the slide cover plate while pulling down at the same time. It’s a tight fit, but when successful, the plate will slide right out, exposing the striker assembly channel. Now just depress the slide lock lever and allow the slide to ease forward. The striker assembly will come right out the back, channel liner, spring and striker together. The pistol is not in an impossible-to-fire condition, as there is no firing pin present after field stripping. At this point, the slide will come right off the front of the frame and you can pop out the recoil spring and barrel for cleaning.
It’s a clever design and what’s not to like about being able to completely avoid a trigger press to field strip the pistol?
Tom shot the heck out of this little pistol with a variety of ammo, including
Hornady Critical Duty not shown here. The Federal HST won the accuracy games.
How Does It Shoot?
I shot the heck out of the MC2sc out at Gunsite in the heat of summer. Hot? Yep. Let’s sum it up like this. All present agreed the thermometer topping out at 108 was a cool day — on the hot ones I could stick a raw egg in my pocket in the morning and have a hard-boiled egg for lunch.
One of the benefits of experiencing a new gun out at the Gunsite Academy is you really get to run it through its paces. We did plenty of holster work, standard range plinking and slow fire, speed drills, and lots of shooting and moving. The two magazines got a veritable workout and spent much quality time tumbling in the dry desert sand. I didn’t have any mechanical trouble with the pistol or the steel magazines, even dirty. I did learn something new about polymer. It will get a bit sticky in ultra-low humidity conditions, so now and then I’d have to help a mag out the bottom — apparently the inside of the magazine well got a bit hot and dry. To be clear, this was a (lack of) humidity issue. When I got the same pistol and same magazines back home here on the east coast, everything worked normally. Just something to be aware of should you find yourself in exceptionally arid conditions.
With all that shooting, I had the opportunity to properly evaluate the carry convenience vs. shooting performance tradeoff between using the 11- and 14-round magazines. The larger one features a grip extension sleeve, effectively lengthening the grip.
My hands are size large, probably average-ish for a man. Using the more compact flush magazine, I get a solid two fingers (middle and ring) on the grip while my pinky remains mostly below the grip base. Using the larger magazine and sleeve, I get a very comfortable “all fingers” grip on this pistol. I noticed a big difference in the joy of shooting using the larger magazine, so for me, that’ll be my practice and plinking configuration, while the flat base will be peachy for ultra-concealment. Don’t get me wrong, I had no trouble controlling the MC2sc with the smaller mag installed, it’s just more fun to shoot with a bit more grip surface area.
The trigger is flat with a little nub at the base of the shoe to help prevent finger slippage to the guard area. I measured pull weight a hair over 6 lbs. It’s a perfectly serviceable polymer, striker-fired trigger. I did find my large trigger finger developed a bit of a hot spot after a couple hundred rounds, but admittedly, this isn’t going to be a high-round count per outing pistol under normal usage.
Even the ultra-concealable flat base magazine yields total capacity of 12. The extended gives you 15.
Ammo And Accuracy
With all the shooting in different conditions, I never had a failure of any kind for ejection or firing. During the Gunsite shoot-a-thon, I fired hundreds of rounds of Hornady Critical Duty 135-grain ammo. When back at home, I added four other brands to the mix: Federal Syntech Action Pistol 150-grain, Norma MHP 108-grain, Black Hills HoneyBadger 100-grain and Federal HST 124-grain.
Given the compact, pocket nature of this pistol, I did some accuracy testing using a Ransom Multi-Caliber Rest from 15 yards. Shooting five-shot groups, I measured 2.2″ for the Federal Action pistol, 2.48″ for the Norma MHP, 1.82″ for Black Hills HoneyBadger and 1.33″ for the Federal HST.
The MC2sc is a pocket pistol with punch. Comfortably at home in a cargo or coat pocket, it’s small enough to fit in many standard pants pockets with a proper pocket holster. Or carry it IWB and take advantage of its 14+1 capacity using the extended magazine and grip sleeve. MSRP for the standard white-dot sight model is $555 and $653 for a tritium night sights version. At this time, Mossberg doesn’t offer a red-dot included packaging, so you’re free to select the miniature red dot of your choice.
For more info: Mossberg.com
