[Jeff Higgins]

Charles is right - get a strap-on recoil pad or a padded shooting jacket. PAST makes one of the most popular strap-on pads. In addition to mitigating recoil a bit, its suede surface will provide better grip on the rifle or shotgun's butt pad. You will probably find yourself wearing it when shooting the Mini 14 and 10-22 just for that reason.

There are a myriad of reduced recoil 12 gauge loads available. Light one ounce trap loads and the like really go a long ways towards making shooting the shotgun more fun. Most buckshot and slug loads are loaded up pretty stout, as are "goose" or "duck and pheasant" loads.

The other thing to do is to simply shoot a lot. Like anything else, you can become more conditioned to recoil. Picking up a short, light 12 gauge loaded with stiff loads is essentially moving right to the head of the line - find some lighter stuff, shoot it a lot, and condition yourself to its recoil. You may never have any reason - or desire - to move up from there. If you do, do so gradually. Learn to read the boxes - all shotgun ammo rates a "dram equivilent" that indicates the powder charge, and the weight of the shot charge. More general classifications are shown on the labels as (in order of both power and recoil) "trap", "upland bird", "duck/pheasant", "goose", "turkey", and finally buckshot or slugs.