A couple thoughts. Most Benelli's have a long LOP. A big consideration for a small framed shooter being a big hurdle to overcome. A proper fighting stance is difficult to get into with an overly long lop for your height and that translates into slower follow ups, increased felt recoil and an ergonomic challenge to overcome for each shot. Another consideration is the M2 is not known to be overly reliable with anything but full power magnum loads. For HD and a light shooter I'd look to reduced recoil loads. At short distance they often outperform mag loads in penetration but even more important is the very light recoil and tame blast/flash. Rem managed recoil slugs are very soft shooters with their 00B being even softer. Both will cleanly level a sh!trat. I've shot many of both from short 12 ga and use them to introduce girls to the shotgun. For those reasons I would personally choose a short pump. The training issue is a training issue. There's no getting around it, she needs to train. Every gun requires training to get proficient with, type doesn't matter. Don't worry about short stroking. Do short stroke malfunction drills and train to cycle the action properly. Train all the bullsh!t out because every platform will let you fu(k yourself. Dummy rounds at home, cases of cheap birdshot for function drills on the range, and the actual load used for defense for on target training. Taking the shot is on you. So make sure you're running on training not panicked desperation. Only one of those has consistent outcomes. Just my thoughts.