Best Budget Guns for New Shooters

Guns are expensive — sometimes really expensive. It's understandable that new shooters often don't immediately want to invest thousands of dollars in their gear. As with most products, higher-quality guns cost more, but that doesn't mean you can't find safe, reliable guns at reasonable prices.

We rounded up fifteen of the best budget-friendly guns currently on the market — five handguns, five shotguns and five rifles. For related topics, be sure to read up on our list of best guns for home defense, our guide to buying your first handgun and our gun buyer's guide to used firearms.

What's a “Novice-Friendly” Gun?

We define a novice-friendly firearm as one that's safe, reliable, easy to use and normally priced under $500. Many guns under $500 fail to check one or more of those other boxes, but we've done the research and found several that strike a nice balance between quality and affordability.

Handguns

Taurus G3c

Taurus is well-known for relatively high-performance, budget-friendly handguns. The G3c is a no-frills compact 9mm pistol designed for concealed carry, but it also makes a serviceable nightstand gun. Its simple design makes it an ideal choice for learning how to load, unload, fire and disassemble a semi-automatic handgun.

If you're a brand-new shooter, we recommend logging some practice hours with a full-sized 9mm before buying a compact or subcompact model. 9mm is an easy round to control with some practice, but smaller handguns produce proportionally more recoil and are thus trickier for beginners to handle.

Glock 17

The full-sized Glock 17 is one of the most popular 9mm handguns of all time, and once you fire one, you'll see why. It's comfortable to hold, accurate, easy to control and supremely reliable. All Glock pistols must fire flawlessly after undergoing intense quality control tests, one of which involves encasing the gun in concrete and then chiseling it out days later.

Current-gen Glock 17s can be above the $500 price point, but older, gently used models for less than $500 aren't too hard to find. Most of the features you miss out on by buying a first or second-gen model are minor quality-of-life upgrades; you'll still get the core Glock 17 experience.

Ruger American

The Ruger American pistol boasts impressive ergonomics and recoil control, even compared to the other excellent pistols on this list. It comes in full-sized and compact variants; we recommend the full-sized model if you're a new handgun shooter, especially if you opt for the more powerful .45 version.

Many handguns have subpar factory triggers, but the Ruger American's trigger is crisp, smooth and doesn't have to travel a mile before breaking. Although you'll likely have to max out your $500 budget to get your hands on one, it's an investment worth making.

Taurus M66

Many modern semi-autos are mechanically simple from a user's standpoint, but revolvers are even simpler, making them ideal for new shooters. Although the M66's size and weight may be intimidating, both are beneficial — the heavy steel frame absorbs a good portion of the gun's powerful recoil, making it easier to control.

.357 Magnum rounds are expensive and somewhat difficult to shoot, but .357 revolvers can also fire much lighter, less expensive .38 rounds, which are great for target practice. Both calibers are more than capable of stopping any attacker, making them excellent for self-defense.

Sig Sauer P250

A reliable semi-auto that can be chambered in five of the most popular pistol calibers is any shooter's dream (as for the diehard .357 Sig fans, we apologize to all ten of you). You can even get conversion kits to rechamber the P250 yourself, no gunsmithing expertise required. All versions of the P250 are equally comfortable to hold and easy to shoot.

Unfortunately, the P250 was discontinued in 2017, probably because the newer P320 supplanted it in most respects. The P250 is now hard to find in brick-and-mortar shops, but there are always a few for sale on auction sites like Gunbroker. With some patience and conservative bidding, you can score one for less than $500.

Shotguns

Remington 870

The Remington 870 is a timeless classic and one of the two most popular shotguns in the world. Police and military forces use it in over thirty countries, and it's equally popular with civilian hunters and sportsmen. You'd be hard-pressed to find a shotgun that's simpler to operate and clean (but if you are having trouble with cleaning your weapon, check out our guide to firearm cleaning and maintenance).

Not only is the 870 affordable and rock-solid reliable, it's got a huge selection of aftermarket parts to choose from. With minimal effort and cost, you can make it a hunting gun, a bedside home-defense gun or anything in between.

Mossberg 500

The Mossberg 500 — the other most popular shotgun in the world — is, out of the box, built to be a home-defense gun. Many models come pre-fitted with accessory rails, shell saddles or other nice extras. It's more mechanically complex than the Remington 870, making it a bit more time-consuming to clean and slightly more prone to malfunctions, but it's still highly reliable.

If you're after the best deal you can find, consider the Maverick line of Mossberg shotguns. These models are bare-bones in terms of accessories and features, but new ones have an MSRP of just $250 at the time of writing.

Benelli Nova

Benelli is renowned for their expensive, high-end shotguns, but they make entry-level scatterguns as well. The Nova, often marketed at beginning hunters, is a rugged, all-around pump gun suitable for a variety of applications. Starting at just $399, it outperforms many more expensive models in terms of reliability and ease of use.

Winchester SXP Trap

Shotguns designed for trap and skeet shooting can cost thousands of dollars. Recognizing the somewhat slim pickings at lower price points, Winchester introduced the SXP Trap for newbie sport shooters on a budget.

Of course, the SXP Trap is great for target shooting and hunting as well. The gun also comes with a quick-change system that makes it easy to swap out chokes in seconds — a welcome time saver for sport shooters who like a variety of events, and for hunters who hunt different types of game.

Stoeger Condor

Pump-action shotguns are simple and reliable, but break-action shotguns are even simpler. In the gun world, simplicity equals reliability and affordability, making (some) break-action shotguns a great choice for beginning shooters.

The Stoeger Condor is simplicity itself, featuring just three moving parts. Malfunctions are virtually impossible, and its 2-shot capacity can actually be an advantage for new shooters (knowing you have only a few shots is an incentive to take your time and aim carefully). If you're looking for the simplest shotgun around to practice with, the Stoeger Condor would be a solid choice.

Rifles

Ruger 10/22 Carbine

.22 may not be an ideal home defense round, but it's arguably the best caliber with which to learn basic rifle marksmanship. Ruger makes many different models of their time-tested 10/22 rifle, and the Carbine model is one of the most popular and affordable.

The 10/22 Carbine is renowned for its accuracy and reliability as well. It's mechanically simple; malfunctions (if any) should be few and far between. This rifle would be an excellent choice for your first gun or for small varmint control.

Remington 770

The 770 rifle is Remington's effort to offer many different caliber choices in one simple, affordable platform. It's a no-frills hunting gun designed to avoid overwhelming new shooters with too many options. It comes with a basic 4×40 scope that's more than good enough for whitetail and other entry-level game.

Being made almost entirely of lightweight synthetic material, the 770 is easy to carry on long treks, although this does make recoil more challenging to control. Even so, you'd be hard-pressed to find a more reliable hunting rifle at a similar price point.

Smith & Wesson MP15 Sport II

Rifles built on the AR-15 platform can get expensive and complicated. Knowing this, Smith & Wesson introduced the budget-friendly Sport II to attract rifle shooters who don't have $2,500 to spare. Customization options are limited, but if you just want a well-built rifle that won't break the bank, look no further.

Savage Minimalist

The superlatively affordable Savage Minimalist offers a number of features rarely seen on similarly-priced rifles, including an adjustable trigger that can be set anywhere between 2.5 and 6 pounds. Whereas many .22 rifles are semi-automatic, the Minimalist is bolt-action. Learning to shoot on low-caliber, bolt-action models is good practice if you later plan to upgrade to high-caliber rifles, which are mostly bolt-action.

The Minimalist also comes in a single-shot “Rascal” variant for just $285 — perfect for young teens just learning to shoot or for ultra-budget-conscious shoppers. If the Minimalist has a downside, it would be the polarizing set of paint and finish choices.

ATI Omni Maxx P3

The ATI Omni Maxx P3 is harder to find in general than the MP15 Sport II, but if you can find it, it's likely to be the more affordable option. The P3 is the less solidly built of the two rifles — the manufacturer even admits that it's not a long-term, “hard use” gun — but in every review we've seen, the reviewer reports firing thousands of rounds with no problems.

If you're reasonably sure that you want to upgrade to a more expensive, higher quality rifle at some point in the future, the P3 could be a good way to ease into the AR-15 world without shelling out a ton of cash right away. However, you might want to pick up a few Magpul magazines to replace the single factory magazine, which occasionally has feed problems.

It's true that you get what you pay for, but buying an inexpensive gun doesn't necessarily have to mean giving up basic safety and reliability (still, buyer beware). Learning to shoot with an affordable firearm is often the best way to learn what you like and don't like — and once you know that, you can then buy better and more expensive guns with confidence.