What was the issue with the 1301? Just wondering if there might be something to watch for in my brand new one.
As far as vetting guns, I sorta wonder about how this is viewed around here, being this is the land of the two thousand round challenge and all. Seems like some folks want to run and run and run things until they are convinced their particular example has no possible defect, and I admit I wonder if that is rational. OTOH using something enough to know yours doesn't have a defect seems prudent. That is, if it is something known and established where you are establishing trust in yours, not all of them (like a new Turkish import).
More specific to the question, I recently bought a 590. I took it out and shot 100 skeet targets, and I also took it out and let my pistol shooting friends all shoot it through a sequence on some of our steel plates (I was breaking it in and smoothing it out, Tom Sawyer style...). After these ~150 rounds I am pretty sure I have a working example of a well proven model with a pretty simple action. Though this revealed that the safety is clunky and didn't get better, and an enhanced replacement gets here Monday. It was also evident that I didn't like the Magpul forend and I swapped back to the Mossberg unit. After I change the safety I will take it out some more and run it through a few more cycles, maybe let my buddies take another turn, and I will probably call it reliable. While I still want to do some patterning with it, it is a pretty basic mechanism and a proven model with a buttload of production history, I do not think I need to shoot tons of shells to confirm it is not somehow flawed.
I also just bought a 1301. I have a 391 that I have put thousands (probably ~10k) of rounds through, so I have a great deal of confidence in the manufacturer and basic mechanics of the system. I plan to shoot it in 3 gun matches for the foreseeable future (starting tomorrow), and maybe would consider a class. I want to work on patterning it with some various loads and chokes, and will do that. I might take it out for the same pass it around routine with my friends. But I do not plan to churn though a bunch of ammo just to prove to myself my particular example works. While the gun industry is probably not as sophisticated as we might like to think as compared to automotive or aircraft, it is a higher quality item from a manufacturer with a solid reputation, and I have personal experience with one of its older cousins that has been pretty much flawless (any bobbles have been directly related to ammo, light reloads specifically).
Ammo compatibility is probably a bigger question, but I do not think that feeding is the issue it can be with a pistol. There are no magazine feed lip variations, the carrier holds the shell right up in front of the chamber like a kid playing t-ball. With the 1301 it would probably be worth running a fair quantity of anything that is reduced recoil, even though I wouldn't expect any surprises since my 391 churned through tons of 7/8oz reloads. But right now the only #1 buck rounds I have are some Winchester that are 16 pellets at 1250 and good gawd, I would expect them to function the gun after it was driven over by a truck and filled with molasses.