Pellet Rifle
Savage Mark II
Remington 870 Express
You can get all three new for half of your $1500 budget.....take the rest and spend half on ammo/scopes and put the rest towards retiring earlier.
-Pellet rifle because ammo is still a pain to find and I bet there will be another crazed hoarding of ammo within a year.
-10/22 is a fun gun but I highly prefer a bolt action. They feed anything and the accu trigger on Savage is great. 22lr ammo is still quite difficult to find especially 50rd boxes in a bunch of variety to figure out what the gun likes best. I prefer something that will shoot anything pretty accurately and keep me from chewing through ammo like a semi auto. For the price I don't think there is a better 22. I have taken many rabbits and squirrels with this 22 subsonic ammo.
-870 express....fantastic shotgun, highly reliable, accurate, simple. I also prefer a pump, it's always made me hesitate that extra millisecond to place my follow up/2nd wing shot more accurately.
Sure fancier firearms exist but if you plan on using them in the field it hurts far less when they get banged up......and they will