I’ve become the thing I hate. I remember when Shockwaves came out, and everyone was slapping a rail on the top and tossing a laser on it. My attitude was that if you’re going to use a rail, why not just use a red dot and aim the thing? Yet here I am, throwing a cheap Chinese-made Gmconn laser on the optic rail of a Mossberg 500.
Specifically, a Mossberg 500 Compact Cruiser, an AOW that doesn’t have a stock, and is incredibly small. In my defense, I just had to try it. I was browsing Amazon for one thing or another, and bam, I spotted this silly little laser. For 40 bucks, it was mine.
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What drew me to this laser was the design of the beam. It’s a big circle and dot, like EoTech decided to design a visible laser. I’m not big on using visible lasers for self-defense, and I spent that forty bucks for one reason: to have fun.
The Gmconn Laser and The Big Why
The ad listing calls it the “Best sight for shotgun fast aiming.” That typo is in the ad. A circle and dot reticle for a shotgun would theoretically allow you to aim the gun and pattern your buckshot load inside of the circle. In a perfect world, the gun’s pattern would align with the laser. That’s a silly idea because different loads, different guns, and different chokes all pattern differently.
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I was attracted to the laser because it was just a little different. At most, I figured it would be fun, and visible lasers are fun. Firing from the hip and ringing steel is fun. I had this Compact Cruiser that already had Point of Aim and Point of Impact issues due to the short sight radius and the bead directly on the barrel. I figured, let’s have some fun.
Breaking Down the Gmconn Laser
The Gmconn Laser is green and is clearly designed with pistol ergonomics. The buttons are on the side and would sit near the trigger guard when mounted to a handgun. The controls are ambidextrous buttons. The laser charges via a magnetic port, but for some reason comes with a 2032 battery.
Installing it on an optics rail creates a weird ergonomic situation. Turning it on and off requires a lot of hand movement and can’t be done from a firing position. The giant circle and dot grow and shrink as your distance to the target grows and shrinks. It’s admittedly huge and quite bright.
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Bright enough to almost serve as a weapon light in complete darkness, at least indoors. It seems to offer about the same amount of light as a pen light. Good enough for making positive identification? Sure, but you’d have to be in bad breath range before you could do that.
During the day, it’s much easier to find than a simple dot only, but it still washes out in bright light at any range beyond 15 yards or so outdoors. In lower light, or even days with plenty of clouds, it’s going to be easier to see.
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To The Range With the Gmconn Laser
Theoretically, if you found the right combo of gun and ammo, you could use the circle to pattern your gun. I figured I could probably find something close, at least somewhat close. I did a quick zero, reminded myself that up and down would be reversed in this layout. It didn’t take long before the buckshot landed where the laser hit.
With Flitecontrol, I could keep the pellets inside the dot within 15 yards every time. That’s just due to the nature of Flitecontrol. With standard buckshot, there was some variance. I did find the combination of ammo and range to get the pellets inside the circle. I used Fiocchi Defense Dynamics 8-pellet buckshot, and at five, seven, and ten yards, the pellets remained in the circle.
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At least most of the time. Within ten yards, sometimes a pellet or two broke the circle. At 25 yards, the circle surrounds the target in its entirety, and the buckshot certainly fits inside that massive circle. The micro-sized Mossberg 500 Compact Cruiser does nothing to help you with recoil.
I was fairly surprised the laser kept working. I expected it to break or to lose zero. However, after about 50 rounds of buckshot and a lot of birdshot, the laser has held up. The zero is still zeroed, at least as much as a buckshot-oriented laser can be zeroed.
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Perfect For Defense?
The biggest flaw is that the battery dies quickly. It’s bright and big, so I’m assuming that it drains battery. It also seems to suffer from parasitic drain. Once it’s on and working, I turn it off, put it away, and it’s dead the next time I take it out.
I still prefer a red dot to any laser. Lasers are fun for me, and I think that’s where they’ll stay for me. If you were dead set on a laser on a shotgun, the Crimson Trace Laser Saddle is the better option. While this worked fine for me over 50 rounds, I think I’d prefer a laser from a fairly well-established and proven company.
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