can that have an affect on action & stock wear? if most double shotguns are made from plain mild steel like the first link here suggests that might be the case. doubles are quite admirable and from a simplicity & repairability perspective some are absolutely great, but others can be complete nightmares lol
A modern O/U or SxS will be using hardened tough steel. All the examples in that blog are going on 100 years old.
The heavy recoil will certainly have an effect on wear. For example, a lot of older SxS shotguns are made for relatively light loads (1 ounce shot weight or less), because doves, pheasant, squirrel and rabbit don't require magnum loads. If you load up some super heavy duck loads in your AyA XXV you'll shoot it loose pretty quick. it won't blow up, but you'll have to have to put back on face in less than a 1,000 rounds. These very light doubles would also want to split at the wrist, depending on the type of action. A side lock gun actually has very thin wood in around the side locks.
A double built for heavy loads will have some specific features that are easy to pick out:
It will have some form of a third "bite". A bite is what locks the action closed. on a light weight game gun like the AyA mentioned above there are generally only two bites. On a duck or pigeon gun there will be atleast three. the third bite is usually located between the barrels at the top of the breach. There are various ones but the most common is the greener cross bolt:
The cross bolt is the protrusion at the top rear of the barrels. it goes into the recess into the breach and a bolt goes through the hole, locking it up like a bank vault.
on our AyA XXV we are using for an example you can see that there is no third bite at all:
the only thing holding the gun closed are the two purdey double under bolts underneath the barrels. it works well for lighter loads.
A Duck/pigeon gun will also be physically larger, with thicker barrels and denser wood, and they generally (but not always) have a pistol grip stock.
Here is my Husqvarna 20B. it is a 2 1/2 inch chambered 12 gauge. It is very slender and light. It feels comparable in the hand to a 16 gauge. beautifully tapered barrels. it's very handy. It has no third bite. I suspect it would tolerate heavy loads fairly well since the lefaucheux action on this gun is actually very strong, but the recoil on this gun would be hellish since it is very light weight.
Here is my Merkel Model 8. It's a noticeably heavy and sturdier gun. it has 2 3/4 inch chambers, a greener cross bolt, and wood that is denser and thicker around the wrist. The barrels, while very nicely made are noticeably thicker. it's a good gun and would do well on the big birds.
the German doubles tend to be heavier built because they were expected to also be able to fire slugs at boar etc. British, French, Belgian, Spanish and most swedish guns tend to be lighter as they were primarily intended for exclusive bird shooting.
