I bought my first firearm a few weeks ago. I’ve never been a “gun person”, but I’ve also never had a problem with guns, and I’ve enjoyed shooting with friends when they’ve invited me. But I’ve never really considered buying one, because my eyesight isn’t good enough to make target shooting on a range much fun, there aren’t many places to plink around here, and I’ve never been much concerned about home defense. If I owned a gun for recreation, it would maybe get used once a year to blast cans or water jugs while camping, which is fun, but not a real pressing need.
I changed my mind because this year has been bonkers, and I‘ve seen a few current events that raised my concerns about security, so I figured if I was ever going to get a gun for recreation, maybe ahead of the apocalypse might be a good time.
So I decided on a shotgun, because they are fun to shoot, and I figured a shotgun would be good for purposes of, “Git of my property! Go on, now! GIT!” I started looking around June or maybe July, and there was almost nothing to be found at any of the local gun shops except for maybe a few extremely fancy and expensive trap and skeet guns. I spent a couple weeks checking Big Five, Cabelas, Bass Pro, Dicks, Sportsman’s Warehouse, and a local shop called Guns Fishing and Other Stuff. Lol. Silly name. But that guy at Guns Fishing told me, “You know you’re about five months late, right?“ Apparently so.
After a few weeks of that, I placed an order with a shop that guaranteed I could cancel any time before the gun was delivered to the shop, but they gave me no ETA. And I also set up notifications on the Sportsman’s warehouse website for about a dozen models of security type shotguns and a few models of Mossberg 500 in hunting styles.
It took about 3 weeks to receive a notification from Sportsman’s that a 12 gauge Mossberg 500 all-purpose hunting model with a 28” barrel had come available. That was not the model I really wanted, but I decided to take it and cancel the other order that still had no ETA. And I placed a separate order with a separate vendor for a 20” barrel that would be more practical for my purposes. And shorter barrels are pretty hard to come by too. Nobody anywhere seemed to have 18.5” security barrels, and what I eventually found was a 20” vent rib, which was delivered pretty quickly.
After ordering the shotgun, it took another couple of weeks for it to be delivered to my semi-local store. And then the whole state caught fire, and the air quality became dangerously bad, and I had a minor health problem, so it took me a couple of weeks to get to the store and start the paperwork. I passed the firearm safety cert test and passed the background check and picked the gun up about 10 days later.
It seems like a decent shotgun. I have not been able to actually shoot it yet. The local ranges are ether closed or open on a very limited basis right now due to the pandemic. Most are open only to club members and are not allowing novices or holding classes. With the high fire danger, you can’t shoot on public lands within a few hundred miles. I’d like to pattern the gun and practice handling it, but I don’t see a good opportunity for awhile. I had a demonstration of the gun when I picked it up at the store, so I know the basic operation. I have used a shotgun before, but it was a long time ago. I’ve watched many videos. And I bought some snap caps to practice loading and other operations. But I’d really like to do the real thing soon.
The ammo situation is tight. There were lots of bird shot options, and I got a few boxes. But there was only one box of buckshot when I picked up the gun. The clerk actually told me there wasn’t any and was surprised to see a box on the shelf. So I got the last one. No slugs at all.
So that’s my shotgun purchase story. It’s a crazy time right now.