I'll answer my own question in part....

Mine arrived in 28 inch barrels and 12 ga. I like it! I bought it in 12 ga. instead of 20 because I already own a few of the latter, and what I needed is a stout single trigger "mud" gun for waterfowl and bad weather hunting.
The one I purchased arrived at a local shop sight unseen, and I was pleasantly surprised by some actual interesting figure on one face of the stock. What I liked even more is in FIT me with cast-on in the stock and the price point at $580. I've put about 75 shells through it with no function problems. Last week I took it hunting in some wet snowy weather, it survived the exposure, and I even bagged four wild roosters with six shots. I'm may even need to look into a 20 at some point!