remington 870. mossberg 500 bantam. how old is he? if he is 12 or older i would just go with a full size shotgun, in mossbergs case it would just be the 500 field then. it may be a little difficult at first but he would grow out of a youth to quick. i think he may enjoy the mossberg better with the tang safety. I feel like it is easier to be safe with, an you can flip it off faster when shooting birds. since the safety is on the top if you have a friend who needs to borrow it, the gun goes both ways for leftys/rightys. Also you can find a lot of mossbergs that come with package deals that come with a rifled slug barrel and a scope mount for deer. good luck finding a gun!