I have a flint double that David Dodds,Selinsgrove,Pennsylvania, made for me with Ron Ehlert doing the engraving and checkering.It's a duplicate of an American 1810 gentlemen's double made in New York.I've handled the original,and the contemporary is much heavier simply because the barrels are 12ga with a 20ga bore.Full turkey choke on the left,modified choke on the right.If you have one made my suggestion is to reverse the barrels and have the full choke on the right,modified or cyl or whatever on the left.This is opposite of modern HAMMERLESS shotguns,but with a hammer gun you have to reach up and cock the second barrel or run the risk of both barrels tripping on the first shot.It's much,much easier to fire the left barrel and reach STRAIGHT up to back the second hammer.Otherwise you'll complicate things for yourself having to reach ACROSS the right hammer to back the left.This is my opinion based on a couple years' experience killing turkeys (easy) and pheasants (difficult).Mine is far too heavy for a wing gun shooting birds.(Remember,when a Southerner says "birds",he's talking about quail). This heavy barrel problem is presently being corrected by Ed Rayle who's making me a light weight set of 16ga barrels with the left barrel being cyl and the right barrel being one ten thousandth choked.I think that little bit of choke will give me a few more feet and put a few more birds in the sack.
Doubles are great fun,but if you have even a simple one made you'll have to add a zero to the above mentioned figures.Dave says it's twice as hard as making a single barrel anything,and the barrels are about three times more expensive than singles. ::