My first shotgun was a Ranger 410 - bolt action shotgun that had belonged to my grandfather - who had died two months before my dad started taking me hunting.

A real POS that was never intended for a youth hunter.

Dad took me to a bargain store when I was about 14 that was called Jamesway, and the money that I made working in a local park for a whole summer was spent on a Mossberg 500 20 Gauge Pump.

Dad had always hunted with a Remington Wingmaster 20 gauge and so his thought was that it was all the shotgun that you needed.

A real dad would have taken me to a gun shop and bought me a used Remington.

I used that shotgun for about 8 years before I saved enough money to replace it with a Remington Sportsman Model 48 16 gauge semi automatic shotgun.

Then a few years later, I was looking for a used rifle in a gunshop and my brother talked me into buying a used Remington Model 1100 12 gauge - which I hunted with for many years.

All in all, I have probably went through two dozen shotguns in my hunting career and none of them were better than the Model 1100 when it came to performance and reliability.

Most every person in my family hunted with my Mossberg or my dad's Remington 870 when they started hunting. Nobody ever quit hunting because it was too much shotgun.

Even my 90 lbs weakling cousin hunted for 10 years with a Mossberg Model 500 - 20 gauge.

You aren't small and nobody is going to have to pick you up after you shoot it.

Buy what ever you can afford and think about what I said and you might just skip the middle gun and go right to the 12 gauge.

A good used Remington will last you the rest of your life.

When we got into Turkey hunting, everyone in my family switched to a Magnum 12 gauge Remington. It's pretty hard to kill a turkey with a 20 gauge.