[Scorch]

Japan doesn't have a history of turning out some of the world's best guns.

It doesn't??? Well, let me name a few: Weatherby, Winchester, Browning, Nikko, Howa . . . need I go on? Besides, they just make the Citori to someone else's specification and design.

Japan is a very anti-gun society

Agreed. But what does that have to do with the quality of their steel and machine tools industry?

Belgium has earned a reputation for fine old-world craftsmanship with regard to firearms. So has Italy.

Yes, and yet both nations have turned out some of the most poorly-made firearms ever seen.

The bottom line is that, while Citori makes a decent shotgun, I don't feel that there is anything all that special about them that would cause me to pay top dollar for one.

Citori does not make a shotgun, it is a shotgun, a model of over/under shotgun, to be exact. And the price asked for a Citori is not top dollar, it is actually a very reasonable price when you consider the amount of time and labor it takes to make an O/U shotgun. If you want top dollar, buy a Merkel or a Perazzi. They will set you back several times the cost of a Citori. A Beretta that costs less than a Citori will shoots loose within a few thousand rounds, go back and look at the Citori at that time.

I see some mention of "salt wood" in some sales info online. Can someone explain what I am to be looking for?

"Salt wood" is wood that has been dried by applying salt to the outside of the wood during drying and curing to accelerate the process. After WWII, the large supplies of walnut had been used up (the weapons industries had gobbled up everything), and curing the wood takes many years, so people tried to figure out how to make walnut lumber quickly. Salt curing worked well for furniture wood, so why not firearms stocks? FN guns made after 1960 used walnut that had been cured using salt, and these guns were notorious for rusting below the stock line. Japanese Brownings use aged walnut from the US, and "salt wood" should not be an issue.