I'm late to the dance, but...
My own, personal, Customized Upland Bird Gun…made to my specifications.
Hah. I should just leave the story at that, sounding like a six-figure Holland and Holland collector's gun, doesn't it?
However, in the interests of full disclosure, the shotgun started life quite a few years ago as a Winchester Model 370, 12 gauge, full choke, 30 inch-barreled single-shot. The 370 is a lower grade version of the Model 37, I believe.
I've had the gun a few years and, since it duplicates my Hercules single 12 gauge, I kept on looking at it as a possible candidate for a pheasant gun I've always wanted. Since I had some very good pointing dogs...Button and then Young Bert, the not-right dog, I usually had a chance to get closer to the bird before it flushed. With a full choke, especially, and even with a modified one, I would have to wait a bit for many birds to get up and away before shooting. If I'd hit them with a tight pattern closer, I would have done too much damage, and really, I'm pretty much a meat hunter. It would defeat the whole purpose of being there.
Also, as the years go by, I've found I most often hit the bird with my first shot, and when I'm shooting a second barrel, it is frequently an exercise in futility--not always, but often. As much as I love my side-by-side AYA 20 gauge ( improved cylinder and modified barrels,) even that gets heavier as the days (and years) pass. Later in the season, I usually carry a single shot for weight, and figuring if I don't hit with one shot, well...that's fair. I had my chance. When jump-shooting ducks, often more than one bird goes up at a time, so then the double barrel makes sense to me, but with pheasants, less so.
OK, with that preamble out of the way, I took the 370 to a legendary gunsmith. He's a local guy who has Parker collectible shotguns shipped to him from across the continental U.S. for rehabbing, such is his skill level. He's an older man, a congenial guy, and with skills on many levels: fabricating parts, sculpting stocks, checkering, and general arms knowledge.
I wanted the 370 single cut down to 25 inches and threaded to take different chokes. I brought an improved cylinder choke with me. Mossberg, Winchester, and some other manufacturers use the same thread pattern for their screw-in chokes. I later got a modified choke for it, which I keep in the stock under the recoil pad. I've never had a shotgun with changeable chokes; mine are all older, more traditional hunting guns. I was seeking a light, fast-handling, more open choked single shot for my remaining pheasant years. Of course, the gun was worth less than the modest cost of the modifications, but this was an itch I'd wanted to scratch for quite a few years.
The result was wonderful. The gun isn't prettier, even with the home-refinishing I did to the much-abused wood, but it comes up fast, tracks well, and opens its pattern nicely to cover my misjudgments in selecting the exact flight track of the birds.
Of the twelve birds I got last year, eight of them were with the Model 370. I'm shooting 2 ¾ inch, number 5 shot shells. With the wider pattern and somewhat heavier shot than I formerly used, if even a few pellets hit the bird, it will come down. If I am spot-on, there is less pattern density to ruin meat.
The biggest problem I've had this year is that Wisconsin only allows a hunter to have four birds in possession--in total, including at home in the freezer, so I've been giving birds away--a new problem for me. I wish that processed and frozen birds could be exempt from that quota, since I would store and consume pheasants well into the Spring. I think the two-a-day limit is fine, but wish a hunter could be allowed to preserve his game into the future.
A customized shot gun need not be expensive, and can be a delight.
I’m loving it. It might be a worthy consideration for you, don’t you think?
(Recoil pad is from a cracked plastic rifle stock. With a single, hunting, recoil is really a non-issue. It is only repeated shooting that it comes into play.)