Considering a Shotgun and reloading for it!

[Artful]

If you're going to buy it ,shoot it a bit and put it in the closet, get a decent auto.

Define Decent Auto - I shot 3 gun - Remington 1100 was what I tried as I had friends that shot trap and they liked it (but they kept multiple one for match one for in for repairs due to heavy use), buy the time you get a mag extention, plastic fantastic stock and few other mod's your spending way more than a 870.

I saw guys trying to run the AK variants in 12 ga - very ammo sensitive. Only 3,5 and 8 shot magazines were run in matches - maybe one of the drums when starting but no one I saw carried a second drum to reload with.

Some (wealthier) shooters ran Benelli's which ran well, but I can't see this for a new shooter at $1,500+.

[fecmech]

Define Decent Auto

Any of the Beretta 300 series auto's,Browning A5, Remington model 11, 11-48, Winchester SuperX, Browning gas Auto's and yes your despised Remington 1100/1187. Any of those guns clean, with factory ammo will run trouble free for quite a while. Take a Beretta 390/391, Browning A5 and you can easily run 1000 rds trouble free with no cleaning. Home defense is not 3 gun, I don't think there are many situations requiring more than 3-5 shots. People who don't shoot on a regular basis, when under pressure have a very good chance of forgetting to pump or short shucking. We see it all the time when guys who hunt come to the clays fields for practice before the season. I've shot pumps for years and have nothing against them but in a high stakes situation I'd take an Auto over a pump every time.

[jmort]

I would go for Winchester SX2/FN SLP/SX3/SX4
Fastest action
Soft shooting
Flanigan would go 3500 rounds without cleaning

[mcdaniel.mac]

I've never had an issue short-stroking Remington or Mossberg pumps, but I did a lot of skeet shooting for practice. If I was going to keep a scatter gun next to the bed, I would take up sporting clays and try to get professional instruction in shoot/no-shoot scenarios as well