That Mossberg is a fine choice. For a personal defense shotgun I prefer it over the Remington 870.
You mentioned purchasing two more firearms so I hope you’ll accept a bit of unsolicited free advice.
You need a handgun and I recommend a decent used .357 magnum revolver. You should be able to find one by S&W, Taurus, or others for less than $400 or so. If you can find a Model 19 S&W for that price, life is very, very good.
Then you need a rifle. I’m going way off the usual reservation here and will recommend a quality, used bolt action rifle by Winchester or Remington chambered in either .308 or 30-06 caliber. Have a qualified gunsmith look at any used firearm before you purchase. It’s worth the small fee.
I think you’ll find if you go this route you’ll have perfectly serviceable defense weapons and you’ll have saved a ton of money that you can put into ammunition and, more importantly, time at the range.
Now for that Mossberg see if you can scare up some of the Federal Low Recoil Tactical buckshot loads. At close range, where you’d use them, they’re devastating.
For slug loads get some of those Federal Copper Solids. You’ll want some standard #6 birdshot rounds for inside the house. Trust me, they’ll stop an intruder dead, and I do mean dead, in their tracks inside of about 20 feet and won’t overpenetrate your drywall.
Now get thee to an instructor and learn how to use that thing!
Best,
L
I think you might be surprised by testing this theory.
Here is #4 penetrating 6 layers of drywall. I would not expect #6 to be stoped by 2 layers.
The Box O' Truth #3 - The Shotgun Meets the Box O' Truth
http://www.theboxotruth.com/docs/bot3.htm
bump the mossberg
Very good advice. Some others not so much. The OP should read your wisdom.
If you have access to a competent gunsmith for any purchase of a used firearm, that's always a good thing but I take issue with the advice on caliber and action of the rifle. For a novice or less experienced shooter it is going to depend heavily on the intended use. Gathering meat would be the primary duty for the calibers you advised and secondarily of course is the ummm long range self defense or area security role. But for self defense and hunting combined, I'd be more apt to recommend a good lever action carbine in .30-30. Light, fairly fast to operate, rugged, accurate and multidimensional. Also a higher magazine capacity than most bolt guns. Easier (especially in terms of cost) to feed in just about every way. If the anticipated role is strictly defensive then you can't do any better than the classic AR platform in 5.56mm x 45.