My first shotgun was a model 37 Featherlight 20 gauge. I once hit a triple on a rising covey that flushed BEHIND me after I'd walked past. Wish I'd had a witness as I was 15 years old and nobody believed it. Next was a 1100 12 gauge which was not great but OK. I sold it before I was twenty.
After I'd learned about shotgun fit (Brister ) and also knowing I could never afford it done right I spent my time looking for sub $1000 guns that shot where I was looking. All Citoris were out for me much to my dismay. I once shouldered a Beretta 682 "greystone" that felt like it was part on my DNA, but was about double my budget at the time. I should have traded the 1976 Monte Carlo I was driving for the gun to the shop owner. Live n learn.
I pretty much gave up on a properly fit shotgun mostly because bird hunting was about 10 percent of what it was when I was a teenager so I went hard into ducks. I think this is why I never got into buying books on shotgunning---it was too upsetting.
All the guys I duck hunted with basically bought an 870 every year and threw it away at the end of the season and bought another in September. LOL I bought an 870 Special Purpose and actually cleaned it after a morning in the swamp. I can hit with it pretty well, but it feels like I'm swinging a lead pipe and I only tolerate it.
True Story on shotgun fit: I shot Trap and Skeet every Saturday morning with an older guy that worked at the same gun shop I did. My mom would drop me off and he would get us to work before the store opened at 10:00 am I was 14-15 at the time. I had run 95-96 many times in Trap with one gun or another, but always choked at running 100 straight. A few years later I was home from my first year of college and went to the range with a girl I was trying to impress. I rented a cheap Winchester autoloader (1200, 1400?) anyway I never let on to the kid that pulled for me that I had done this before and he was stunned when I hit 25 ( what I had paid for ) and asked if I wanted to keep going. On the 100 shot and and hundred broken clays he was losing it! He ran into the club house and started recounting to everyone in earshot the newbie that busted 100 straight with a rented gun and cotton balls stuffed in his ears. I never let on but I learned that day that cheap Winchester fit me and I found one for sale at Roses Dime Store ca. 1982 and bought it for about $125 on sale. It jammed constantly on anything I ran in it so I sold it frustration. Have got two 870's now and still hope I come across a Greystone one day. And if I do it will go everywhere with me rain or shine!
