My next purchase will be a shotgun. I'm not sure what kind - that's part of what I'm going to talk about. The journey to a shotgun has been long and confusing.
Basically as entry level pump shotguns (I'll be buying a pump gun) go you have the Remington 870 and Mossberg 500/Maverick 88. Throw in some other entry-level pump guns like the Benelli Nova, and entries by Winchester, Browning, etc. These are similarly priced, they work the same way, and they all have great reputations. So how the hell do you choose? It's tougher picking a shotgun, I've found, because while there are plenty of ranges where you can fire every pistol under the sun, there's no equivalent for shotguns - either you have a buddy who owns one or you're out of luck. So I've been looking at Cabela's and Bass Pro, shouldering various models to at least see if they match up with my natural aim point reasonably well. You know what? THEY ALL DO.
At this point I'm willing to just get the cheapest one. I have a work friend who will sell me his Maverick 88 (a budget Mossberg 500 with some Made-in-Mexico parts) for $200, and I'm sure I could get him to go lower, so that's tempting. I could hit the pawn shops and try to find a similar deal (it's apparently better to get an older Rem 870, with the Wingmaster variants having particularly good reputations - new Remingtons have a bad rep for quality and build). Since I'll just be using it for shooting clays at a recreational level and maybe hunting I don't think it makes sense to spend a ton of money at this point. If it turns out my wife or I have incredible clay shooting skills, then we'll diversify and get the $2000 Browning Citori, but not just yet.
An analogy from a Maverick 88 owner with whom I fixed my truck the other week: appropriately, he compared them to trucks - Mossberg/Remington/Winchester guys are like Ford/Chevy/Dodge guys. All three makes of truck would be a good choice. My F-150 has done a great job, and the guy who helped me pick it out hates Chevys, but if he wasn't in my life and I bought a SIlverado instead of an F-150 I'd probably be just as happy. Dodge does great work too. The differences are exceedingly minor and someone trashing one and exalting another is, most likely, doing so out of brand loyalty rather than pointing out legitimate issues (I see a difference between pointing out recent manufacturing defects in Remingtons and saying "Remington blows, get a Mossberg"). Whatever I end up with, I'm sure it will be fine. Expect pictures when I do acquire something. The guy who gave me this truck analogy also apparently has some kind of rig in the back of his pickup, a really high-end automatic clay thrower, so expect pictures of that too.
Another analogy. My wife brought up the prospect of getting into clay shooting in the first place, hence the push to get a shotgun. Soon after she proposed it (after hearing work friends' stories about hunts and clay shooting), we looked at guns at Academy in Houston when we were down there, and almost bought a Rem 870 Express (glad we didn't!). We also looked at a Yildiz over/under which was about $900. She liked the engraving and style of the o/u, and her work friends shoot o/us, so we were set on that for a while. Then I suggested a pump-action, like a Mossberg 500. Then it was the Benelli Nova. Then she learned about semi-autos and their easier recoil. Then for a while it was 20 gauge over 12 gauge. Etc.
The other night we were talking specific models. I continued to push for a pump, but I showed her a picture of an affordable CZ semi-auto. She looked at it and said "You know what? We should just get the one you think is the best value, the pump-action. It's like an All-Clad."
All-Clad is an American company that makes cookware. Their cookware has an incredible reputation due to the high-quality metals used in construction that impart no taste in the food. All-Clad's products, notably, do not have a lot of the ergonomic or "comfort" features that you see in other cooking implements. The handles are solid steel with no rubber coatings or other things to reduce heat. They are also somewhat uncomfortable to hold. They usually don't have any kind of non-stick coating on the cooking surface, either. But they're built to last and do a brilliant job of actually cooking food, hence the reputation. A solid tool, built to last, that may not have "comfort" features but does what it is meant to do and will never falter; this is what you want in a sautee pan AND a gun.
Guns are tools. To me, having a whole safe of guns that do different things is no stranger than having a cupboard of different-sized pots and pans, or a workbench of different tools. Imagine a dedicated bird hunter. This is merely a slice of the things you can do with guns, but it is not inconceivable for this person to have a shotgun for turkeys (rifled barrel with scope), shotgun for small birds (20 gauge with a long barrel), and a shotgun for larger birds (12 gauge with a long barrel and the capacity for 3.5" shells). That's already three guns! Say he hunts deer as well, so there's a bolt-action rifle or two in different deer calibers, like 270 and 308, for different distance engagements or differently sized game. That brings it up to five. Maybe this guy lives out in the country and wants a gun for home defense, since the closest police station is 10 miles away via a dirt road, so he has a shorter barrel 12 gauge, or a handgun. Now we're up to six! There are plenty of people in Washington, on the news, and in our lives who cannot comprehend what someone would need with SIX WHOLE GUNS, but to me that's like asking why someone has so many differently-sized screwdrivers, or what anyone could possibly need with a cast-iron skillet AND a saucepan.
