RE: Looking at possible first guns.
I went to Dick's the other day and looked at some of the guns they had there. They didn't have the Stoeger P-350, but they had the supposedly similar Benelli Nova. I liked it, and the synthetic version was only $300, so I might get that if I can't find the Stoeger. However, the Mossberg 500 scoped slug barrel/field barrel combo was only $250! As for rifles, I only got to look at the Beretta Tikka, but I liked that.