I have a Nova and it's a fantastic, indestructible pump gun for birds. Mine doesn't shoot slugs well at all. Started at 30 yards with a clean gun and 10 boxes of rifled slugs (2 boxes of 5 kinds). Cleaned it after every 10 shots. Hit a 2' by 2' target twice in 50 loads. Handed er over to my dad and he hit the target once in 10 shots. We got his SBEI out and got about the same results. This was 8 years ago or so when the SBEI was new and I had just picked up the Nova. We then got his old 1300 out and ran the same slugs through it. Both able to hit a paper plate at 80 yards with a plain bead sight and smooth bore, so the results weren't us just shooting poorly. That being said, out of all the people I know who own Nova's I hear 2 responses: "Shoots rifled slugs amazing for a smooth bore," and "Can't hit a bull in the hind end." I don't know if people have that differing of opinions or if it really does just matter on the gun but I was not impressed with either of ours.
The Vinci is a sweat gun for a waterfowler, but everyone I know that owns one uses 3 dram shells when trap shooting or they jam. That may make a difference if you hunt quail. The same SBEI my dad had the lousy run of slugs through has fired absolutely flawlessly on everything from trap loads up to 3.5 inch mags for geese and every SBEII that I have seem to have a similar rep. The M2 has a reputation for reliability as well and the only one I ever shot ran slugs fairly accurately. Can't say much about the Monte other than as far as I know it was designed for upland and is very light so it's nice for walking, but firing a box of steel loads through it may be painful if you duck hunt a lot.
Next time you're at a gun store take a look at a Browning Maxus. I've shot a few and never seen one jam. It shoulders nice for me and is weighted nice for me.
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