Mossberg makes a great shotgun for the money, I personally have a 535 it's my all around gun. Ive killed deer,duck,quail, coyotes. Just remember with the rifled barrel, you will get the best accuracy from the sabot type slugs, you can use the rifled slugs (aka Pumpkin Ball) but this will lead to lead fouling. One thing I have found to be very important, is when choosing a scope, you can have the best shooting weapon but with poor quality optics it's useless. Most scopes are somewhat equal in broad daylight, its at that "prime" time (dawn,dusk) that a quality scope will shine, nothing worse than when a big deer walks out the last 15 min. of legal shooting hours and you can't find it in the scope(been there). The cantilevered scope mount is good if you're going to be swapping barrels out. More advice try several different brands/loads of ammo especially in shotguns they will all shoot different. 12ga is a great home defense weapon especially a pump just cycling the action if enough to deter most thieves, just beware of over penetration of larger shot like 00/000 buckshot, the ammo companies have developed HD loads for the 12ga to reduce this risk. Good Luck and welcome to this addiction called hunting.