i also like the 12gauge remington or a mossburg are both solid guns and will perform really well with practice. also try to shoot differant types of shells to see which ones work the best. for example i have a remington 870 express that loves to use winchester 3" magnum loads but will give me alot of grief when i try to use shells from remington. so like i said you have to experiment with differant loads to see what works for the gun as well as you. hope this helps you out some and goodluck with the hunting.