My first firearm was a Savage Stevens .410 SxS (now my 18 year old daughter's) and it has the automatic safety. For someone learning to shoot and hunt or who doesn't shoot or hunt very often, I think the automatic safety does add an extra margin of safety. Such shooters can be nervous and shooting pretty exciting. Anything that might help prevent an accidental discharge (confused minds and young hands and fingers shaking) even at the expense of forgetting to take the saftey off and missing a shot (which happened to me more often than I would care to admit), is a good feature. I was more comfortable taking my daughter shooting with me and others knowing that the little .410 shotgun was looking out for all of us!
For clays where the shotgun is kept unloaded until the shot is to be fired I think the automatic safety is a bother. It is also something to go wrong. My Fox Sterlingworth's became jammed in the off position and when it got jammed a second time after I attempted to fix it, I didn't give a second thought to leaving the transfer bar out and "converting" the saftey to manual. Disabling the automatic safety made the Fox a better shotgun. In the field, while it only takes a split second to flip an automatic safety off after a reload, it is an extra thing to do on a moving gun and therefore for both clays and hunting, I prefer the manaul safety.
Doug
