Thanks for your information on shotguns.
I assume deer hunting with a bolt action shotgun is legal in Maryland. Any thoughts on bolt action shotguns?
Would it be a good idea to mount my rifle scope (say leupold VX-3i 3.5-10x40mm) on shotguns?
Yes on mounting the scope to the shotgun unless where you are planning the hunt is very thick woods where shots will be extremely short range/jump shooting them. You’ll want to generally keep it at 3.5x
A shotgun is a shotgun under Maryland hunting regulations. A savage 220 is hard to go bad by for deer hunting if you do want a bolt action shotgun.
If you want to do more than hunt with it don’t get a bolt action shotgun though. Get one where you can easily swap barrels and is faster to cycle the action. Go with a pump action or semiauto. A bolt action shooting isn’t really suitable for any shotgun sports except trap. Also replacement barrels are not cheap. So if you get one with a rifled barrel for sabots you are likely to be out $200-300 for a smooth bird barrel for turkey hunting, birds, small game, etc.
IMHO they are kind of one trick ponies. I like shotguns for “do everything” ability. My 870 handles things just fine for about anything within 100yds I’d ever want to do with it (of course means I’ve got tons of other guns too :-) )