My advice to you is to start reloading your own shells. I shoot trap and sporting clays and load my own 1oz. 12 gauge loads at about 1185fps. I can shoot 150 of these in a day and they don't bother me. However, if I shoot a box of the bargin variety field loads from Walmart, my shoulder hurts after 25 rounds. Lighter loads, combined with a high quality recoil pad like a kick-ezz should go a long way to improving your shooting and reducing recoil. Beyond that, sell the pump gun and get a qualilty, gas operated semiauto like a beretta. I find these very soft shooting, so much so that my son started shooting one in 12 gauge when he was 12 years old. It was the bargin Beretta 390 sold be Walmart but it is one heck of a gun.