ORIGINAL: gmil6184
They have sold over 5 million 870s for a reason, I think it is the standard for all pump action shotguns, everyone else is playing for second place. I know the mossbergs are popular on here and a lot of people have them but i have never liked the feel of them. I'm pretty biased though, I grew up shooting remingtons so anything else feels "weird". I bought the remington 870 express turkey shotgun a couple years ago (3" mag, plain old wood and blued steel) and it shot like a champ right out of the box. I would encourage you to check it out unless you really have your heart set on a black one with the 3.5" chamber. I think I paid like $260 for mine and it comes with the remington super full which throws a pretty wicked pattern for a factory choke. That will have you ready to hunt at well under your $600 limit.
Well spoken words about the 870.
I'll be the first one to admit that for an all around shotgun the 870 takes the cake. Notice that my 835 is STRICTLY a turkey gun..... I'm not swinging it so gun fit is really a non-issue, really the only time the action ever gets worked is when I'm unloading or cleaning it. For strictly a turkey gun, it does everything I want it to do. But if I was going to use a shotgun for anything else... it'd be an 870 or a BPS.
PS: I just had a waterfowlers pow-wow at Gander Mountain and picked up one of the new 870 SPS turkeys with the half thumbhole/half pistol grip. I really like the thing for one big reason... Remington finally clued in and recessed the forend slide so that you can have something other than receiver or mag tube balancing on your knee. What I hate about it is that they put a vent rib and a bead on it rather than the Williams sights they have used up to this point. WHY!!!!! Remington can't get it totally right these days! [:@] But I've shot my share of birds with the old brass bead and you can put sights or a scope on the thing if you like. Its a sweet rig.