First, I live in an area that is shotgun only and we can use slugs or buckshot.  I had bought a Mossburg 500 20-ga with a rifled barrel for my older son but frankly I was never happy with the groups it shot so I sold it off when he moved up to a bigger shotgun.

My new hunter is only 8 so shooting slugs may well be out of the question but he is a tough kid.  I am looking to get another 20-gauge and this time I am planning to go with a Rem 870 youth in 20-ga.

I am debating if I want to try a rifled barrel again however as out 12ga 870s with Brenneke slugs from smooth bores shoot better than any sabot out of any rifled slug gun I have shot.  I can shoot about 2 - 3 inch groups at 100 yards with the Brenneke slugs.  

I figure if he is shooting I would limit ranges to 50 yards but he is shooting pretty good with the 22 so far.  He has yet to shoot a shotgun though as I don't have anything under a 12.

Regardless if I go smooth bore with Brenneke or rifled with sabots I will get a scope on the gun for hunting.

So let's hear it - for a young kid fosters or sabots?

Reference my old thread here:  https://www.ar15.com/forums/t_1_5/1380698_20_gauge_slug_hunters___need_advice_about_shitty_shooting_rifled_barrel_Mossberg_500.html

My other son is 17 now and he shot the Mossburg 20ga when he was 12.

Is 410 legal??

One company is even offering 28 gauge slugs.

In a 20 gauge pump I would recommend Remington managed recoil.

But I believe a 20 gauge auto would be best.

My indecisiveness is to go smooth bore with Brenneke's vs rifled with sabots.  Green box Remington sluggers out of my 12gauge shoot better then the sabots out of the Mossburg and I tried every brand we could find, scrubbed the bore etc.  stopped short of a gunsmith visit as we wasted enough on a poor shooting gun.

I know 20s can shoot, just trying to buy a better ammo burner!

We can't use semiautos for big game in Pennsylvania.  Hell its the first year we can use semiautos for small game!

Another option I have is to buy a 20-gauge sling barrel for my T/C Encore.  It would be a cheaper option certainly.

Thanks for the suggestion but I think for a new hunter the smallest I will go is a 20.  I can get him some lite field loads to practice and we will work up.  If he can't handle the recoil there are plenty of growing years to come.  One problem, at least in PA with their mentored youth hunting is we can only carry one hunting gun total.  If he had a 410 and made a poor shot I couldn't finish the job with  shot. With a 20, it just gives a better margine of performance if he smacks a shoulder bone for example.

We went shopping today and looked at and handled a lot of shotguns.  I decided to buy him a new Remington 870 Express Synthetic Compact JR.

It has a 18.5-inch vent rib barrel with a short 12.5-in LOP stock with a pretty darned soft recoil pad.

It doesn't solve the slug question but I have a shotgun for him now and we can start having him get used to it.  I can start working up to more powerful loads and then get either a smooth or rifled barrel.  I did look at breneke green lightning slugs today for the 20 and noted they are rated for both smooth bore and rifled barrels.

So, have some time but clearly finding a rifled slug barrel is easy, finding a smooth bore slug barrel is very hard which should tell me something!

If I want an easy way to add a scope and be able to use the shot barrel for birds etc then the canteliver would be smartest and that gets me back to rifled bore.