ok cool, figured Winchester is gonna be solid but like hearing first hand experience. it's either that or a Mossberg 500 so I can swap the barrels for deer, but wherever I'm going for that there'll be something available for me anyways

Yeah Winchester should be good. The only company I’d avoid is Remington, they were getting sucked dry by a private equity company until pretty recently and were putting out garbage. Might be better/improving now though idk