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I'm wondering re the making of a modern Howdah from a modern side by side shotgun. The locks or side plates of a pistol bend downwards more than most shotguns. All, some? I don't know. A pistol ideally has external hammers. If the locks or more accurately the plates need to be bent downwards, how much of the internal workings of the locks of an hammer shotgun are behind those plates? How much of the trigger mechanism?

Possibly a hammer shotgun with shorter side plates/locks could be sourced to be modified.

12-bore is pretty large. 16-bore or 20-bore might be better. Old 16-bores might have hammers.

Either leave them as is, smooth bore. Or sleeve or add rifle barrels as required. Expensive!

Any legalities aside.

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If I've done this right, you should see a pic of the guts of a lock like that on the Braddell & Son and the Lefaucheux pistols.

Moving the guts doesn't work well, better to start with a lock engineered to have the desired curvature for the pistol grip. However, if you look at the Lefaucheux pistol, you can see how they lowered the rear of the lock plate to allow for the use of straighter locks. Not as elegant, but it might be an option.