Made in Turkey and imported under the TriStar Sporting Arms name, the matte-nickel-finished Cobra Marine Tactical 12-gauge shotgun comes with a lot of desirable features that are usually only found on tactical shotguns costing hundreds of dollars more.
While its finish and black polymer furniture don’t make this gun completely impervious to damp conditions, they are far better than most. In my experience, Parkerized finishes are quick to rust, and wood will eventually warp or split.
The controls on the pump-action Cobra Marine Tactical are identical to the Remington 870, and they even break down similarly, although no parts appear to be interchangeable. The action bar release, just ahead of the trigger, protrudes a little more to make it easier to manipulate while wearing gloves. The fixed synthetic buttstock has a 1-inch rubber buttpad to help mitigate the extra recoil found in most law enforcement 12-gauge ammunition. One unusual feature of the Cobra Marine Tactical is its stout spring-loaded forearm, which can chamber a shell all by itself after the forearm is pulled to the rear. If the user doesn’t like this feature, he or she can simply disassemble the shotgun and reassemble it without the spring. For targeting, the shotgun has an integral front ramp sight, and though no rear sight or optics rail is furnished, the top of the receiver is serrated and dovetailed for adding an optics mount.
My favorite feature is the short Picatinny rail molded into the front-bottom portion of the polymer forearm, which makes it easy to mount a variety of lights and/or lasers for CQB work. For the video, I was even able to mount an Inteliscope Pro on the rail and record footage of me shooting head plates with my smartphone. So how did the Cobra Marine Tactical fare at the range? To learn more, keep your eyes peeled for a full review in an upcoming issue of GUNS & WEAPONS FOR LAW ENFORCEMENT.
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