Rem. 870 is a good gun. I personally bought the Mossy 535 that I use as an all round gun. I went with Mossberg because of teh ambidextrious thumb safety instead of the crossbolt safety. I'm right handed but I like using my thumb to engage/disengage the safety so that pretty much limited me to Mossberg or Browning. I bought the 535 so I could shoot 3.5" shells but in reality the 500 probably would have been ok since I never shoot more than 3". I have shot an 870 as a slug gun and personally I think that my Mossburg is more accurateas a slug gun. If you go with the Mossberg however, I would not buy the combo like I did. By the the slug barrel separate because you can get a cantilever barrel pretty reasonably priced. The barrel that comes in the combo will require you to use the drilled and tapped reciever for mounting a scope and you will have to remove the scope when you change from using slugs to using shotshell. As long as you are carefull, a cantilever barrel will allow the scope to maintain zero when you switch barrels. (you still need to check your zero after changing back to your rifled barrel but it will be really close with the cantilevered barrrel). BTW yuo can pick up a new 500 or 535 mossberg for under $300.