Saturday I went out shooting some clay pigeons with my brother in law and some other people. This is not a full range report, but I will say that I really like the Maverick O/U Hunter. I am not a particularly expert shot with a shotgun, but I broke the first few targets thrown. Later in the day I started missing more targets.
Recoil was not bad, partly because I was using low recoil loads, and perhaps partly because I mostly fired from the lower barrel. My brother, who was using a pump action shotgun, complained of a sore shoulder by the end of the day, but I had no discomfort, even though I am smaller and older than my brother. (However, he was also shooting a heavier load than me.)
The gun points nicely, a lot better than some pump action shotguns I have shot.
The gun gave me no trouble. Some of the other folk there had some trouble with jams in their pump action guns, a lot more than I would have expected actually. By the way, this is just an extractor gun... no ejectors. however, I think I prefer it that way. It made it a lot easier to collect the fired hulls.
Several other people tried my shotgun and liked it, and after shooting my gun one of the nephews told his father that he wants an O/U.
I really liked the ability to follow up a missed shot with a very rapid second shot. It seemed to be much faster than taking a second shot with a pump action shotgun.
I like the look of this shotgun. Obviously, because it has a synthetic stock and a matte finish on the metal parts it is not flashy, but in my opinion the styling of the gun is very nice. In my opinion some O/U shotguns have a rather clunky look to them, but this one is almost shapely and sleek-looking. Also, although at first the open space between the upper and lower barrels is not something that I particularly liked, it didn't take me long to learn to like it, and now I think I prefer the gap. Besides, by not filling in the space between the barrels the manufacturer has lightened the gun a little, and I think that because of the gap between the barrels the gun is a little less affected by wind resistance.
I like the weight of this shotgun. If my postal scale is accurate then the weight is pretty close to seven pounds, unloaded. Balance also seem pretty good according to my tastes.
As far as the fit of the stock to my physique is concerned, I am no expert, but i don't have any complaints.
My one negative comment is that when I first got the gun it was rather stiff. It was hard to open and the safety/barrel selector was extremely stiff. I partly disassembled the gun and smoothed up the safety/barrel selector and now it operates well. I also used some very fine sand paper to work on some of the parts that were rubbing together to make the action hard to open. (I was very careful to not let any abrasive enter the action, and was very careful to clean the abrasive away afterward.) I did this with a very light hand and avoided working on any of the parts that might be critical to function, such as the hinge. The gun is still somewhat stiff to open, but is somewhat better now than before. I will rely on normal breaking in to smooth it up further. Oh, one other thing, the engraving that labels the positions of the safety/barrel selector was not done deeply enough, making the markings hard to read. This is a fairly minor issue, and I may just leave that issue alone.
Overall, despite the few negative comments made above, I really like the gun so far. I also bought the same model as a Christmas gift for one of my sons,. He loves it, and so does his wife.
One last comment: I have wanted a double barrel shotgun since my early teen years, and finally I decided that forty five years (or more) of deferred gratification is long enough, and when I found an excellent price at an online vendor ($300, plus shipping and FFL transfer) I went ahead and bought one for me and one for one of my sons.