Difficult to buy a shotgun sight unseen. As you all know, the shotgun must be a good physical fit when you mount it. it may be pretty and a good buy, but unless it is a good fit for you, the money will be wasted.
Or, one can get a gun and they like fitted to them. As all gun stocks are made to fit "the average man" odds are pretty good the stock of any given shotgun will not fit the shooter. The gun may be close enough for a given person to shoot well enough but it likely doesn't "fit" them.
This leads to the question, "Just how does a person know if a stock fits?" Unless the buyer already knows how a gun properly fitted to them should "feel", they are most likely to purchase a gun that "feels" like the last one even if every dimension was incorrect. People tend to buy what's familiar when their knowledge or experience is not to the level of telling them otherwise.
I recommend buying the gun one likes and then go shoot it for a while. Several hundred shells should get one enough rounds to determine if they can shoot the gun well enough. If not happy with the results, a trip to a qualified shooting instructor is next. An instructor should be able to determine if the gun fits close enough and, if so, what flaw(s) in your shooting need to be fixed to get the most from you and your equipment. If the gun fits poorly, a good instructor will be able to recognize the basic issues and might be able to make some gross changes to alleviate the problems. The instructor should also be able to suggest someone better able to help correct fitting problems.
If buying a gun to shoot, I look first at what pleases me or has the features I want. Fit is one of the last criteria. I've gone through the fitting process with enough guns to get a good idea of what needs to be done and how much it will cost. I factor cost into the price and then decide if fitting is viable or not. I've walked away from some otherwise good deals due to fitting cost. I've also made some pretty good buys as someone else jumped from gun to gun hoping to luck into a gun that "fit" them as it came from the factory. I keep in touch with a couple of these people, I get some pretty good offers on guns from them.
