Hey y'all. Just a quick introduction. I'm a life-long shooter but rather inexperienced with shotgunning. About 90-95% of my shooting has been rifles; various blackpowder shooting, rimfire competition (back in high-school anyway), a fair bit of traditional archery in the last few years, and then some cowboy action. What little shotgunning I've done has been mostly what I consider "redneck skeet;" shooting clay birds in the barnyard. I have done exactly one round of sporting clays and one upland bird hunt at a preserve somewhere in middle Tennessee when I was in high school. It's not that I didn't like shotgunning - I did very much. It's just that my Dad and I were more into rifles, and I was mostly into flintlock rifles. Grad school, a job, and young kids took me out of serious shooting for several years, but I'm now able to get back into shooting more often. My main interests these days are flintlocks and Black-Powder Cartridge Rifles.

I've always been a sucker for old-school, traditional stuff. My current crop of shotguns consists of my great-grandfather's Stevens 311a and my grandfather's Winchester 37, both in 16-gauge, and then a 12-gauge coach gun for cowboy action. I had a Remington 11-87 special purpose for several years, but never really took to it and sold it to finance other shooting interests. I am now a member of a shooting club with a decent trap range, and I feel a notable pull to shoot some shotgun more seriously. My personality is such that if I buy something, I tend to research the crap out of it and try to get something really meaningful out of the gate. I know that like most guns, shotguns can be addictive; we'll see if that happens to me! In the meantime, I'll try to read as many threads as I can, but I'm sure I'll have a number of questions.

Welcome! You are on the right forum!

While everyone has their personal preferences, there is a whole lot of hard acquired knowledge here and scores of folks that are pretty generous with their time to share it. Don't be afraid to ask -- even the posters with thousands of posts were also "noobs" once.

I am gonna offer one suggestion from personal experience. Consider taking some shooting instruction from a qualified instructor that you feel comfortable with. Shotguns are not rifles and the dynamics of hitting flying targets are a whole lot different than shooting a minute of angle group off a benchrest.

A well meaning and more experienced friend can be some help as an instructor, but the pros have learned how to "teach" and not just what to teach. American male macho culture assumes that every man born here must be genetically pre-disposed to shoot a firearm well, or that some prior military service is more than adequate experience and qualification . After all, grandpa was a "good wingshot" and he never had no professional instruction.

Save your self some headache and frustration. Shelve the ego for a bit. Shoguns are not rifles.
I was 40 years old before I went to Orvis Sandanona for a 3 day shotgun event in 2006 or so. I had hunted with shotguns (upland birds) since age 13 and was taught by older family members. I was never a regular in target sports like skeet, trap or sporting clays-- just occasional rounds in the off season when not hunting.

Man I did not know how much I did not know about shooting a shotgun until taking some lessons over those 3 days with some really qualified shooting instructors. Self-taught is not necessarily a good thing. Ingrained bad habits are harder to break than a pair of chondelles.

All the instructors were a little different in their approach. The West London trained guys were very different than some of the US trained instructors, and it was more than the accent, clothing and terminology. (Note -- it rained like hell but I never had more fun in the rain that those 3 days). I did it again the next year and had a great time again.

Whatever shotgun you buy, you are going to shoot it it better and enjoy it a bit more if you are having some success breaking targets with it.
Just my $.02.

A Browning BT-99 is just about ideal for trap shooting.