For those of you looking to skip the story on how these two Mossberg 590 Shotguns came together and enter the sweepstakes — shame on you. You’re missing a good read. Having said that, the entry form is at the bottom of this article. Good luck!

From the days of hide-and-seek with branches in your hat and Red Ryder BB guns in the woods behind the barn, to modern computer-designed patterns designed to save lives on the battlefield, if you need to walk softly and carry a big stick, sometimes it’s necessary to hide said stick.

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Camo patterns for weapons and clothing generally combine two methods of color theory: Matching and disruption. Color matching, just as it sounds, uses colors similar to the surrounding environment to help whatever is being camouflaged blend in. Meanwhile, disruptive coloration uses high contrast to break up outlines and disguise the shape of an object, person or animal.

The Combatants

This brings us to the specially camouflaged Mossberg 590 shotguns up for grabs here. The first, customized by MAD Custom Coating, is a magazine-fed Mossberg 590M with an 18.5-inch barrel, a synthetic stock and ghost-ring sights. Blowndeadline tackled the second gun, a Mossberg 590 Nightstick with a 14.38-inch barrel and a wooden Raptor grip, as well as a corncorb forend with a leather hand strap. Let’s take a look.

MAD’s Mag-Fed 590M

We always like to keep the instructions for the custom themes vague, as it leaves more room for artistic interpretation. I have to say that when we told David Teves from MAD that his camo theme was “country boy,” I half-expected the shotgun to come back wearing blue jeans and a sleeveless flannel shirt with a can of Copenhagen in the shirt pocket.

What David and the MAD boys did was far more useful, however, and it’s very slick. It’s also a great example of both matching and disruptive colors, combining MAD Black, Desert Sand, olive drab, Bazooka Green and Flat Dark Earth, as well as custom maskings from the company’s MADLand, Edge and Brush camo patterns.

“The black lines were thrown in to break up the pattern a little more. It seemed to blend in well with the trees and foliage around our shop,” Teves said. “This is definitely a unique project for us, as we’ve never combined this many camos into one ‘ultimate’ camo before.”

Ultimate, indeed. I think the complete design should be called MAD’s KS line, with “KS” standing for “kitchen sink,” as these masters definitely brought everything in for this one.

Blowndeadline’s Nightstick

Since MAD was goin’ country, so to speak, we decided to send Blowndeadline to the city. Urban camouflage comes with a few inherent challenges, as those environments offer many different settings. Typically, a forest will look like, well, a forest. But from a law enforcement or military standpoint, working in cities can be difficult.

Most patterns rely on disruptive patterns and higher-contrast colors to break apart the outlines of a soldier, and they need to be effective across a wide variety of environments. That being the case, urban camouflage tends to be a little less conventional looking. However, when it’s done well, it’s usually quite appealing to the eye.

With this is mind, Michael Sigouin and his team at Blowndeadline set out to design something new. Combining sniper gray, graphite black and a custom mix of sniper and battleship gray with a new and yet unnamed pattern, the result is a dark, subtle, moody mix that falls perfectly in line with the theme and complements the Mossberg’s “Nightstick” moniker. Maybe “Silent Night” would be a good name for the new camouflage pattern.

When I talked to Sigouin about the inspiration for the theme, he said, “We wanted to try something different. I just got tired of seeing the same old!”

Ready to Win These Mossberg 590 Shotguns?

Check out the entry form below for your chance to score these bold beauties. And if you’re looking to customize your own turkey or breaching shotgun, these coating masters have the talent to help you stand out, even when blending in. So check out madcustomcoating.com and blowndeadline.net to see more great work from these top-notch coaters. Also, visit mossberg.com for more on the awesome base guns.

This article is from the February/March 2019 issue of Ballistic Magazine. Grab your physical copy at OutdoorGroupStore.com. For the digital version, head over to Amazon.

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