I went through this with my kids too. The best thing to get the young'un is an auto loader in 20 ga. There are plenty out there used for a fair price and they will recoil a lot less. My grandson is now using MY 1100 Standard weight with a shortened stock. He shoots slugs and I have a 3" bbl for it he shoots geese with. He isn't at a disadvantage on anything except the geese because you can only get #1 steel shot which is a bit marginal past 35-40 yds...but most of the geese we take are at 20 yds or so. The BPS is a brutal gun to shoot. It seems to have more recoil than any of the other pumps. If you must have a pump get a youth 870. Least recoiling of the lot. I used quite a bunch of different guns for Hunters Safety classes and found that most kids could handle the 870 20(but they prefered the 28 ga 870 I have). The Mossberg is just lighter and seems to have more recoil. Also when you go to sell the gun(if you do) the 870 will bring more on a trade or outright when you get a 12 ga for him..or her. Worry about the left- right issue later. TJ is right about the choke tubes thing but it would be better and cheaper to find a gun or bbl with them in the first place. My grandson shoots just fine with modified choke. Young'uns are a bit slower on the mount when shooting and the bird or whatever is usually just a bit farther out there so modified seems to work better
