I had a thought this morning on the way home from church. I've always hoped I could one day have a SXS "Express" rifle in something like 600 or 700 Nitro Express, but such guns are kinda out of my price range and I don't honestly have any way to justify the purchase even if I did decide to do it anyway. Also, at $100.00/shot, even if I could afford the gun, I could never afford to shoot it very much.
Now, I have been half-heartedly experimenting with a store-brand break-action 16 gauge single shot. I got it fitted with a recoil pad to spare my shoulder. I've got some MagTech 16 gauge brass shells and have loaded some patched Rush Creek .626 round balls atop a light charge of Alliant Green Dot. I had to improvise some of the components I wanted to use, but even so, I was able to hit a gallon milk jug at fifty yards using just the bead. No idea what kind of pressures or performance I was dealing with, but the recoil was fairly light and there were no obvious signs of excessive pressure.
Sooooo.... I thought "why not do this with a double?" The gun I would probably sacrifice.... ummm... utilize... for the project would potentially be a Savage/Stevens 311 series shotgun in either 16 gauge or 12 gauge. The butchery...ummm... modifications... would potentially include:
1. cutting the barrels a bit shorter to remove the chokes
2. installing a rear express sight with two to four leaves
3. installing a small gold bead front sight
4. installing a recoil pad
Most likely, the barrels would not be very well regulated, so my solution would be to use one or more leaves for the "close range" barrel and the other(s) for the "long range" barrel.
I had considered cut rifling of one or both barrels. It would potentially be very shallow slow-twist (1:66?) rifling. After thinking about it for another mile or two, I decided that this was not necessary immediately. I had gotten acceptable accuracy with my single shot through a full choke without any real load development, so rifling might not even be necessary. Besides, I could always do it later if I wanted to.
My intended purpose would be as a deer gun for close cover. In Wisconsin, most deer are killed at ranges right around thirty yards. That close, I could probably use the bead sight the gun came with. Initially, I might just try it with the original bead for reference, but I would still want the express sight just for appearances sake.
Any thoughts?