For ammo, if you are interested in steel, check out Kent Fasteel. It has the highest velocity commercially available and has really impressed me. Speed kills with steel!

A good duck gun is one the fits and feels good in you hands and patterns the loads you shoot well. Outside of that what ever meets those criteria anything goes.
My first shotgun was a Ithica 37D. I switched to an O/U some thirty years back and although I own a few pumps and have had autos it' s an O/U that gets the call for all my hunting and clay shooting.
I' m not going to tout on gun over another ,but will say learn the art of waterfowling and time in shooting clays you' ll never need to shoot a 3 or 3 1/2 mag.

I have a remington 870 express and i have found out that it is the best and most reliable gun i have ever owened.

Shoot a Benelli. It is the only way to go. I also use 3 shot, in 1 3/8oz loads. Would' nt have another gun.

coolbrze0,

My Browning Gold is a great gun, found it last Christmas for $550.00 used, but it didn' t have a thing wrong with it. It is a little fancy to take out hunting with me on the Mississippi this season so I will be taking my 870 super magnum. It just might make a couple of trips with me though.

CJW

Shoot the gun that you are familiar with! I sure miss the lead! How do I drive to your house?

The 870 sounds good.I just bought a Benelli Nova for $400.00 .Shoot it last saturday using dove loads almost no kick.I can' t believe how light it is,so I' m looking to buy what Benelli calls a recoil reducer.I know someone will talk me into shooting three inch shells someday and I want to be ready.

For a regular field gun I would get either a browning or a Remington, But if you are gonna be hunting in erratic weather conditions and moisture wether it be snowing or raining or in conditions where the gun can or will get wet, You can't beat a mossberg with a parkerized finish.
I have a Mossberg 835 Special Purpose crown grade with a 26 inch barrel 3.5 inch chamber and a parkerized finish with synthetic stocks this gun you cannot hurt Its been hunting in snow and blizzard conditions has be drowned in shallow water just pulled it up dumped the water out of the barrel and fired just fine. Another time I was hunting in sleet and the tempature dropped below freezing the before wet action was now a frozen solid action when a flock of snows came over head I fired it and the percussion from the discharge broke the formed ice in the action and was back in action for more flocks of snows, One time after a hunt the gun was soaking wet when I got home I was gonna be sure to spray it down and wipe away the moisture but i forgot about it and didnt clean it till the next day and it was perfectly fine not one spot of rust anywhere. If you did that with any other brand shotgun you would be carrying around gun with a no longer nice finish but a rust finish. Everyone seems to think the more you spend on a shotgun the better it is...... NOT. A friend of mine has a Benelli you just look at it funny and it rusts like its nobodies business. If you want a great reliable waterfowl gun that will withstand punishment go with a mossberg but be sure it has a Parkerized finish or a camo finish b/c even mossbergs blued finish guns rusts like every other brand

so with a rem 870 synth u can use interchangeable chokes?
wat about the rem 870 super magnum synth?
can it shoot slugs?

I to agree with most others. I have the 870 wingmaster pump and love it but I just bought myself a new 12 guage 3" semi-auto stoeger today with all chokes for under $600. I haven't tried it yet but I will have a realy hard time leaveing my 870 at home. It just an all-around reliable shotgun.