I doubt anyone on this forum cares if you're a student / working at McDonalds for $8 an hour .....a guy making $30K a year ....or a guy making $100,000 a year ....
I realize I'm defending some of us on the forum / that take more of a long term approach to shotguns - primarily from a clay target perspective ...
but the real enemy here is the mfg's / that have jumped into the arena of O/U's - because shooters wanted something that looked like a Browning or a Beretta - and the mfg's smelled money and saw a market. What I think the customers really wanted - was a serviceable gun / nothing fancy --bare bones ....but they wanted guns that would hold up "for awhile" - without the extras they perceived that added price without increased functionality ....
I think, most of the mfg's that jumped into that arena - took advantage of buyers - and some mfg's took their mfg'ing overseas to countries that had little if any idea of how to make a decent O/U ---like Russia and sometimes Turkey.... The result were some terrible guns - bad parts, guns that fired both barrels at once, ribs that fell off, stocks that cracked, firing pin springs or components that failed - and what I think is the biggest problem - barrels that had different Points of Impact .....and sometimes wildly different ---at 21 yards one was high and right 10" / and other barrel was low and left 6" on a Hugulu a young shooter bought at my club .....
The other problem is that gun shop retail salespeople ....have very little experience with shotguns ....often repeating what the marketing rep says, or going based on price, or what the senior sales guy says ....and there is all kinds of really poor info out there!
Noone like to admit they got suckered in buying a $500 gun let alone a $3,000 gun ....
I'm critical of retailers that sell a "Citori" ....as the last gun you'll ever need ....when they may not even realize there are about 25 Citori models - let alone that they are not created equally. As an example, of the 25 or so models of Citori out there -- about 20 of them, would be a complete waste of money for me personally, because they do not "Fit" me. Now they are all solid, well built guns ...but it sure doesn't mean they are for me !!
What some of us are trying to say - is educate yourself - on price, on quality, on durability, on weight, on balance - on what stock dimensions fit you ...as you make your choices to spend money on a shotgun. As long as you do that / based on your budget ...and make an informed choice ....I and everyone else on this forum will be happy for you.
I will also tell you that 2 or 3 out of 10 guns that come out of some of these mfg's seem to be pretty good ....for 2,500 or maybe even 10,000 shells ...but the question is, looking at a gun in a box, how the heck do you know / and what is going to happen if it isn't ...can it be fixed, who will fix it, how long will it be gone, where do you send it ....???
but to just rant at your perception that some of us are picking on less expensive shotguns with no reason - does not contribute to the discussion ---and in fact, it reinforces what some of those poor mfg's and poor retailers know ( that if you make it look pretty good on the surface ) you can fool the buyers into not checking out what you've really put into the gun ( or worse yet, what you left out ) ...
