Bought a new 12 Gauge shotgun a week or so back for just a little over $200 from our Army Post Exchange.
Its Chinese made, but imported in by Savage under their Stevens trademark.
A Stevens Model 350 shotgun which is a 95% copy of the old Ithaca 37 but with two major product improvements - a twin action bar on the pump and a safety improvement to prevent slam fires from cycling the pump while keeping the trigger down.
Taking it out of the box, I found a nice blued steel shotgun with a hard polymer stock and fore-end. The steel receiver gives it some heft to offset the polymer stocks.
I took it to the range and using the provided Security Barrel I was able to keep 5 Winchester 1oz slugs in a 6 inch circle at 50 yards. Not bad for not having shot a 12 gauge for the first time in about 10 years. Most of my Shotty work over that time has been with 20 Gauge light skeet/slug loads so I assume the accuracy will get better the more I shoot the shotgun.
The slug barrel of course created a huge pattern at 25 yards with Estate 7 1/2 shot loads but the recoil from both the shot and the slug loads were very manageable. I expected the patterns to be very open at that range but at 5 yards, this Security Barrel ripped holes in the target frame with this load which would clean any home intruder's clock.
As a lefty, I really appreciate the bottom ejection port which allows me to not worry about getting a shell back in my face during the ejection phase of firing. A downside for being a lefty is that the Safety button is located in the trigger guard where if you are a lefty, the fire button will rub your trigger finger when you fire it. The safety is smoothly out of the way for right handed users. This safety button will be reshaped with a dremel shortly to match the same height as the right side of the button so it is flush during firing for me. If I wear a glove, the safety isn't an issue but if I was to shoot an entire Skeet string without that glove, my trigger finger would be feeling it from the checkering on the button.
I've already ordered the optional 28 inch Field Barrel which has a vent rib sights and uses WinChokes from my local gun shop to complete the set on this very nice and affordable shotgun.
Bruce