"I agree that a single shot will tend to kick alot more due to the light weight of the weapon. Heck a friend I knew years ago had one that kicked worse than his double barrel shotgun when you fired both barrels at once. I can only imagine what magnum loads must be like. Which brings up a good question. Can you fire magnum loads in one? His seemed rather flimsy, but again it was years ago...

Still, with practice, you can load and fire off rounds quite quickly. Easy to get in 4-5 shots in on target within 15 seconds.

Some of the single shots I seen actually break down into 2 pieces for easy storage and cleaning. This would remove the problem with cutting down the barrel and avoid any nasty legal issues."

"My cousin took a New England single 12, cut the barrel down to 19 inches, re-blued it and attached a heat shield with buit on ghost ring sites. We used some 00 Buck with no issues and the recoil wasn't as bad as we thought it would be. If you were looking for something quick for close in work, I totally recomend it. Would say get you a shell with more pellets though."

"A modern single shot shotgun from a maker like H&R or New England is a very stong gun and if it has a 3 inch chamber I think it is probably as safe to shoot as any other action shotgun. I think H&R even makes one that takes 3 1/2 inch shells
These magnum single shots are popular with Turkey and geese hunters who don't want to pay a bunch for a gun I suppose
I used to have an old 10 ga. single shot that I've shot a fewgeese with,

A good recoil pad helps a lot and I know some people put lead in the stock to make the gun heavier

Many years ago lots of cheap single shotguns were made and these could give you trouble, I've seen them so loose you could see daylight in the breech and would rattle when you shook them. Some have damasscus barrels too.
Not all single shot shotguns were cheap guns, I used to have a beautiful little English 28 ga."

"You know I was just thinking...as we all know post Zed or other Apoc, those barrels are going to get hacked even shorter. Eventually what you are then holding is a blunderbus. This should pretty much scrap any pretense of patterning like Filadog said.
So I was thinking of going to smaller shot to get more out there, but your pattern could be pretty sparse with smaller shot not carrying the desired punch..
So I was thinking (yep I do that once in awhile)
( going to try this myself next time I reload Shells) Using a duplex load of say 6 , 00 buck backed by #4 buck for the balance of the fill. This should give you some descent pattern density still while retaining some hard hitters.

Filadog What is your opinion on this?"

"http://www.atigunstocksusa.com/hr/hrn4100stockset.htm

For about $50 you can turn your H&R/NEF single shot .410 into this rockin', badas$, beautifully tacky tactical shotgun. I just never knew you needed a heat shield for a single-shot shotgun. Some folks are quicker on reloads than others I guess. "