[Rannug]

There are very few shotguns that will not shoot slugs. Make sure you do not get one with a Damascus steel barrel. Doubtful if you will even see one tho.
INMO, a Ruger 10-.22 is the best considering price. Very reliable, very accurate with the right ammo. Mine is a constantly accurate rifle out to 120 - 130 yards. Beyone that takes some luck. If I could only have one rifle, it would be a 10 - .22

[mbynack]

I bought my 10/22 brand new for around 40 dollars.

[jonascord]

Just as an aside: A "Damascus" barrel is an old method of making a shotgun barrel where strips of steel were hammer welded into a spiral around an inner mandrel. This was a popular and inexpensive method in the 19th century, but with the advent of smokeless nitro powders at the beginning of the 20th century, the Damascus was quickly found to be too weak, and would split along the hammered seams.

This is where the "blossomed" barrel you see in cartoons came from. (Mythbusters, naturally, screwed up this story when they were playing with a-finger-in-the-gun-barrel myth)

I recall, vividly, all the warnings in American Rifleman, back in the 50's. Guns last forever, and hauling GrandDad's side-by-side Iver Johnson goose gun out of the back of the closet and loading it with modern shells was a fairly common mistake, then.