"Worth it" means different things to different people. It has to be an individual determination. "Wants" have a way of turning into "needs" for a lot of us. Coming down hard on the issue, most of us could get by perfectly well with one pretty plain shotgun, an extra barrel and a handful of accessories to cover all our shotgun needs. A $150 used 870 Express Magnum that was originally equipped with a vent ribbed 26- 28" barrel fitted for RemChokes, along with a $75 18" riot/police or 20" rifle sighted smoothbore slug barrel, a handful of choke tubes, a magazine extension, Sidesaddle, sling swivels and sling, LEDWave Z-5 weaponlight and Streamlight mounting bracket for the light- the whole package totals under $400, can reasonably be put together right now with judicious shopping and can absolutely do about all the general shotgun chores anyone could reasonably need done. Granted it would require reconfiguring the gun 'between jobs' but that's no real chore and no real consumer of time either. Granted there might be some issues with pride of ownership compared to the fancy schmancy high-dollar boomsticks, but if the shooter with the budget scattergun is good enough to make the owners of the expensive bright'n'shiny stuff eat crow, then what really matters about the tool he or she uses to do it? Not much, it seems to me, and it just adds savor to the crow.
Value is seldom measured in dollars alone. There are lots more aspects to value than just a price tag, and some silk purses really did start out as sow's ears (and aren't really very far removed, truth to tell). Reliability and dependability are high on the list IMHO. So are maintainability and adaptability- specialization, as has been famously said, is for insects. There are matters of mechanical design that fascinate some folks, the design features of a certain model may hold a much greater appeal for some shooters than others. There are issues of appearance alone- deep bluing, carefully crafted engraving, fine wood fitted with precision- that appeal to some shooters on an elemental level.
So what's 'worth it' to me, might not be to you- and vice versa. It isn't for any of us to really say what is or isn't worth it to someone else, when you get right down to it. I tend to agree with Dave, I'd rather have the half dozen 870s (and I do have the half dozen 870s, in fact- but I have one Benelli also, a M1S90 that only cost about as much as two of the 870 packages I listed). I didn't need the Benelli, but I wanted it. I didn't need the FN SLP I just brought home either, but I wanted to experiment with it and see just how much gun it really is. Don't need the old 'suicide safety' Remington M11, or the 1100, or the 11-87; don't really need the Browning A5 or the BPS, the Ithaca 37, the two Winchester 1300s (12 and 20 ga.) or the FN PS, any of the several Mossbergs, or more than about three of the 870s that seem to be reproducing in the dark of the gunsafe either. Don't really need my dad's old Stevens-Fox Model B 20 ga., or the Christmas-present 12 ga. 311 that I about wore out as a boy, or the svelte little Italian 20 ga. O/U from Cape Outfitters that followed me home one day, nor any of several single shots and Savage combination guns. But they're all there anyway.
"Need" seldom has a lot to do with what shotgun we wind up preferring to shoot, and neither does "worth it." Just find what you like, and enjoy it as often as you can. Life's too short for anything else...
lpl/nc
