Okay, my new baby finally came in and I went to my local Cabelas and picked her up. (Thanks to Ken at the store at the Christiana Mall for all your help.)
I got a little flack for my decision to go with a shotgun made outside the USA. It was a hard decision, but in the end I think it was the right one for me. I have three 870’s, and I love them. They are rock solid, and they have and I know they will serve me well.
In terms of the Benelli M2, it came down to a single issue for me. Gas guns are dirtier than inertia, and getting the the Versa Max meant tearing down the gun and soaking & scrubbing the pistons.
To me, this means eventually having the shotgun lock up, and potentially when I needed it the most.
I know, I know, the M2 would eventually fail without regular maintenance, but I’d argue that it is going to go further between failures than any gas gun if you ran them side by side, round after round. I just don’t see how it could be any other way.
And now that the local Sporting Clay Range is open again, it is time to go run some rounds through my new baby.