(Virgin post here) I've been following these conversions with great interest, and as I myself have a great passion for firearms and many things mechanical, I find this fascinating. Besides the obvious need for me to pick up Ellis's compendium on the conversion of double shotguns to double rifles, this forum has been an excellent resource.

Now, besides the obvious legal ramifications of producing one's own receivers for anything other than personal use according to BATF regulations, I wonder if it might be easier to produce one's own back end versus using something like a Merkel (several thousand dollars for the donor shotgun if that's the case)? I've been toying with the idea of buying a Baikal double rifle for the sake of disassembling it and sinking my teeth into the mechanical tolerances of the action on something like a 30-06 or .45-70 but might be be better to just find a reasonably strong shotgun for conversion instead for the same amount of money... Hrm. I'd love to hear your opinions on this.