Do not be fooled by others claiming the 870's problems, nor by those encouraging you to change your mind and buy shotguns that are twice as much in price.
The man has his mind made up to buy what is in fact one of the most proven, tried-and-true actions in shotgun history. Millions have been manufactured.
Now for those claiming rust problems, jamming or feeding problems -- they are either because of neglect or frequent use on traps or sporting, etc. I've seen and heard of these cases as well (especially the extractor problems) but these are only on very heavily used and neglected weapons.
BUT THE MAN SAID HE WANTED IT FOR HOME DEFENSE...not everyday use! For home defense it is ideal.
Yes, if you want it to have maintenance problems then shoot it every weekend. If you want it to rust, don't clean or oil it after shooting and then let it sit in your basement. I personally have never had a weapon rust so I don't know what these others are talking about.
However, if you want a home defense weapon that you will practice with only occasionally, then buy the 870. I paid about $200 for mine at Wal Mart years ago and I believe they are still a very attractive price (but not a cheap gun) when compared to the Benellis. Another attractive feature of the 870 is the amount of accesories available to it should you choose to fit it with lights, stock, forends, bayonet (unlikely), oversized safeties or heat shield (I wouldn't do it, but believe it or not it's out there)
A couple of times a year I take it to an indoor range with my wife to make sure she is still comfortable with the weapon. I recently put a rail on it with a 200-lumen light as anything that it was designed for will most certainly be proven (1) in the dark, (2) in my house, (3) while I am descending my staircase in the middle of the night. That is it's sole purpose and it rests in its accessible location for most of the year, un-rusted and waiting.
You and your family will sleep well at night with the 870 provided you do not turn your home defense unit into a sporting gun. If you want to do that, then I agree you should take a step up in price and brand. Otherwise, you have 99.99% reliability in a proven stopper-go-to weapon without breaking your bank on overhyped marketing.
There is soo much bs in this post I don't know where to start.
First off my Remington 870 I had was brand new in the box when I got it. It has had problems since it was new with jamming. As in not heavily used. Right out of the box it's had problems and it did not break in. That's another thing wrong with your post. If you read the posts of even most the guys that like these guys you will see how they all say the gun works better after you shoot a few hundred rounds through it to break it in.
Mine didn't work well when it was new nor did it work well when it had a few hundred rounds through it. I really wanted to like that gun but I couldn't. It just wasn't much to like about it. After 2 years I didn't have any rust and to be honest I think you are right. I don't think you will have much rust if you take care of it and keep it oiled although on some of these you may. However, after those 2 years I did have the finish on the stock worn off in quite a few spots where you could tell it was super thin.
The next thing here is you are saying the ones that get used jam but the ones that just sit in the house for home defense don't jam? What happens if he gets one like mine that jammed right out of the box? If he doesn't shoot it any and is in a situation where he needs it for home defense guess what? If it jams he is basically screwed and would have been just as well off to have a rock. You need to shoot and get used to any gun you will use for home defense. If it was me personally if the gun wasn't reliable enough to shoot skeet with it would for sure not be reliable enough to be my home defense weapon. I want to be 100% sure it will go bang every time and not jam if I'm using it to defend my or my families life. Not hope that it will because I barely used it.
The ideal home defense gun is one that doesn't jam no matter if you use it for skeet shooting too or not.
As for accessories no argument there as there are a ton for the 870's.
As for it being a 99.9% reliable gun you just said above it wasn't if you used it for skeet shooting or basically anything other than let it sit in the closet or safe.
I do not see how anyone can say this is a 99.9% reliable gun. Look at how many people have issues. No where near 99.9% of these are reliable.
To be honest I think there are probably worse guns out there than this I just can't say I think this is a good gun. There seem to be much better options out there for not that much much. Like the Benelli Nova and I've even heard a lot of better things about the Mossbergs although I've never had one or been a huge fan. They are even cheaper and I hardly ever hear a complaint about them. It used to be this way about 870's but now it's not at all uncommon for me to hear complaints.
The 870 isn't a horrible gun it's just not a very good one either and there are great ones for around the same price range.
If you are skeet shooting and it jams oh well. You miss a skeet. If that's all you want to do with it it's fine I guess. However, if you want to hunt with it it's annoying if you miss a shot due to it jamming or shoot something and it gets away injured because you don't have a second shot to take it down.
The same for home defense it's not okay for a hd gun to jam so it's not a good choice for that either imo.
Then he felt he, and the other would show us how a 12ga should work, One has a Binelli Nova , the othe Browning Cynergy...and the had Jams using Federal Ammo, cuz they said the 100 count box of Winchester I picked up at walmart was junk. They other 3 that were shooting 870's had no issues...