I have long been intrigued with the concept of survival guns. There’s just something about the concept, like the ultimate survival handgun I wrote about several years ago. One recurring survival gun I see pop up from time to time is the single shot survival shotgun. After being fascinated by them for a long time I decided to make one.
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I started this article way back in the summer of 2022, over two and a half years ago. I got really into it…then had to move. A minor snag was encountered, then this thing got stuck in the safe and forgotten about. Recently I noticed it, pulled it out, and finished putting it together. I hope you enjoy this as much as I did putting it together! Stay tuned because there will probably be a few more updates to this shotgun.
Also, one caveat: this isn’t a super-duper serious project. This is a fun brain teaser. Will it work? Yes. It is very practical? No. but it was sure as hell fun! Keep in mind, too, this thing is still a work in progress. There are a couple of unfulfilled ambitions with this gun (the ability to carry ammo on the gun, a
The Single-Shot Survival Shotgun
I know this kind of project has been done to death on YouTube. This is far from an original idea. I just had to have a single-shot survival shotgun, though, so I thought I would bring you guys along through the process of making one. Maybe since my ultimate survival handgun is out of reach, this is my consolation prize.
To be honest, the main reason for this gun is to satisfy my own curiosity. But now that it’s built, it has found a home in the spare-tire compartment of my SUV. I spend quite a bit of time in the backcountry and having something like this couldn’t hurt. There are a couple other reasons for this gun, too. If I need to loan someone a firearm in the future, it would be hard to imagine something simpler and safer. Importantly, should my 870 go down I have a backup shotgun to use all that 12-gauge ammo through.
What this is not: unfortunately this is not a budget gun project. It could have been, but I spent more than I would have liked on the gun and all its accessories. It’s wasn’t crazy expensive, but for what I remember single-shot shotguns going for, it cost kind-of-a-lot. You can probably do much better than I did if you’re willing to buy a a cheaper, current-production shotgun. I just don’t want you thinking this is a super-cheap project; I probably could have purchased a low-end Mossberg 500 for what I have in this project.
Still, it was a heck of a lot of fun. I hope you enjoy reading about it!
The Platform
The platform for this project is exactly what I wanted: a New England Firearms (NEF) Model SB1, aka the Pardner. It is a single-shot, 12-gauge, hammer-fired, break-action shotgun. Though no longer produced, New England Firearms guns were well-made. NEF was one of Harrington & Richardson’s brands, but H&R went down in 2015 with the Remington bankruptcy.
In any event, I tracked down a used NEF SB1 on Gunbroker. Aside from being well made, these were very popular gun and have at least a little aftermarket support. The gun I bought was well used but mechanically sound. There was some rust on the gun but overall it was in really good shape and functioned perfectly.
These shotguns used to sell for under a bill at big-box department stores everywhere. Since being out of business they are a little more scarce now, being really desirable as single-shot shotguns go.
The NEF SB1 has a 3″ chamber, sports a wooden stock and forend, and has a 28″ barrel. The only sight is a simple bead front. This thing was built as a straight-up hunting gun but is reliable and rugged. This would make the perfect platform for my single-shot survival shotgun.
Why a Single-Shot Survival Shotgun?
Before we get into the modifications, additions to, and subtractions from this gun, you maybe wondering, “why a single-shot shotgun?” In today’s world of repeaters holding dozens of rounds this is a fair question. First of all, this is a “survival” gun. Note that the question, “surviving what?” isn’t answered in the title. If the purpose is surviving an event like combat, then our needs are a little different.
General survival can be a be a bit more squishy, though. Since we generally aren’t sure what we’ll get into that we’ll have to survive, the gun needs to serve multiple purposes. And there are few guns that serve these purposes more admirably than the single-shot 12-gauge shotgun. it is an incredibly versatile platform, and I’ll talk about that more in a minute.
Versatility
In fact, the shotgun is the only gun I can think of that is the preferred weapon for hunting both small game and large game. That’s right, the same gun used to hunt rabbit and squirrel with is also used to hunt deer and bear. Twelve gauge is also an amply capable defensive round. And if that weren’t enough, 12-gauge is easily in the top five most common types of ammo in the United States.
Form Factor
The form factor of this particular 12-gauge has some huge advantages, too. First, it’s not a very complex firearm, so there aren’t many moving parts to break. Single-shot shotguns are also really thin and lightweight, making them easy to store and carry, respectively. With their really short receiver they can also be really short firearms, aiding both storage and maneuverability. Finally, if you were going to pick a firearm that was as broadly legal – and difficult to demonize – as possible, you’d have a hard time finding something better than a single-shot shotgun.
Now I had the platform. However, it was far from being exactly what I wanted when I received it. Some modifications were in order. Let’s take a look at those.
Modifications
Before getting into cutting-and-pasting modifications, the first order of business was to clean the old shotgun up. This didn’t involve a whole lot of time or energy as the gun wasn’t in terrible shape to begin with. There was a bit of gunk in the bottom of the receiver, and the whole thing looked like it needed scrubbing and a good coat of oil.
The exterior of the receiver had some deeper rust. This took a bit of light sanding to reduce. The inside of the barrel had a bit of surface rust. This was very superficial and was easily removed with some Hoppes #9 and a bore snake.
Cleaning the gun started off with giving the whole gun, inside and out, a good coat of Hoppe’s #9. Then I gave her a light coat of oil and called it good. I have a perfectly functional 12-gauge shotgun at this point. However, it’s not quite what I’m looking for yet.
Furniture
The first set of modifications were to make the gun a bit smaller and lighter. The ol’ Pardner isn’t a terribly heavy gun as-is with an overall weight of 5 lbs, 10.2 ounces by my scale. It is long and awkward, though. The first, and easiest modifications were to replace the furniture. I could have cut the stock down but I elected to go with a synthetic stock that would be impervious to the weather.
Normally when I think of something made by Choate I think of cheapo SKS stocks. Choate does, however, make reasonably good-looking stocks for NEF shotguns. I purchased a “Conventional Youth Stock” which shortened the length of pull from 13+ inches to a much short 11 3/4 inches. This also shortened the original overall length of 43″ down just a bit.
I also added a Choate forearm, the “Store-Arm” which has some storage compartments within it. I will address these further down. The Choate “Survivor” buttstock was also tempting as it, too, had a nice bit of storage space, but it had a 13.25″ length of pull. This is just too long for me and the fast-handling gun I envision, and much chunkier. The Choate forend is also both longer and thicker than the standard forend. I feel like it really gives you something to hold on to.
Barrel
The real improvement in length was made by reducing the barrel length by a few inches. This gun came with a long, 28″ pipe. I cut 8″ off of this to create a barrel length of 20″. Actually I kind of screwed up and ended up just a hair under 20, but it’s close enough. After cutting the barrel and swapping out the furniture the overall length is now 33 1/4″, almost 10″ shorter than the original length. Weight is way down, too, at 4 lbs, 6.8 ounces, a savings of almost a pound and a quarter.
Unfortunately cutting the barrel left me without any provision for a front sight. This wouldn’t do. If I’m being honestly, leaving an extra 1 1/2″ of barrel (20″ vs. 18.5″) was partially to accommodate for screw-ups on my part. I wanted to install a front bead myself. I ordered a bit and tap specifically for it, and a couple different beads. But if I messed it up I could always cut half an inch of the barrel and re-approach…which I had to do.
New Bead Sight
I purchased a drill and tap set, and a front bead. And… I immediately screwed up this process. This necessitated cutting an 1 1/4 inches off the barrel, for a total remaining length of 19.25 inches. For some reason, this is where I got stuck. I insisted on a drilled-and-tapped-and-screwed-in bead, instead of some simpler options. The gun languished, almost finished but without a bead for almost three years. Then I finally came to my senses and decided to throw a simple barrel-band type sight on.
I chose the Phoenix Technology Shotgun Sight – a screw-tightened barrel-band with three fiber optic rods. I’m not sure why three, but I liked the fact that it screwed on, and figured I could go from there.
Finish
A tough, durable finish is necessary for any survival firearm. A lot of these guns get painted with Rustoleum camo. Even my AR is spray-painted. The only problem with rattle-can is that it’s not very durable. The reason it doesn’t matter on my AR is I can touch it up at will, and I’m not super worried about it rusting since much of it is aluminum, and the rest already has a good finish.
But this gun will rust, and probably fairly quickly. I sprung for the more expensive and slightly more fussy Brownell’s Aluma-Hyde II. This is an epoxy-based spray paint that is reputed to be much more durable than standard spray paint. It will also reportedly stand up to harsh chemical solvents. Not that I plan to use a lot of solvents on my single-shot survival shotgun, but I do want a finish that will last.
The Aluma-Hyde application went okay. This finish is somewhat tricky to get on – it dries to the touch in 10-15 minutes, but then requires 24 hours for an initial cure. Once that time is up it requires a week to fully cure. Still, you have to wait up to two weeks before applying a second coat.
I used two colors: Magpul FDE and OD Green. The FDE paint came out of the can unevenly, spitting out big gobs at times. I still managed to get a reasonably uniform finish. Considering the difficulty in application I was very pleased with the FDE coat. I added some very loose “stripes” of OD green. Upon reflection, I’m not sure why I didn’t track down some blaze-orange paint, or just pain the barrel and action black. But I do kind of like the look of this.
Sling
Finally, a sling is to a long-gun what a holster is to a handgun. I wanted a very simple sling to be able to carry this thing long distances if need be. I toyed with the idea of a shotshell-carrying sling but rejected it. Shotshells dangling from the forend can’t help accuracy, and if I actually carried the gun by the sling I’d be worried about losing shells. instead I went with a very simple Magpul RLS Sling. It’s intended to be used as a loop sling for a rifle, but it works well for this purpose – just a solid, flat, adjustable sling with nice, clean lines.
Ammo & Ammo Carriage
At this point the single-shot survival shotgun is almost done. Obviously one thing a survival gun needs is the ability to carry some extra ammo. The ability to pick up the gun and go seems important (it might not actually be). So, I ordered a couple of shotgun cards in 4- and 5-round versions from ESSTAC. I hoped to place a 4-round card on the forend and maybe a 5-round shotgun card on the buttstock. In reality I couldn’t quite get this to work out. The cards wouldn’t stick in the gun safe, so I didn’t figure they would stick in the temperature extremes of being in a vehicle year-round.
I have an idea, but still haven’t landed on a solution that I am totally happy with. This is an area where this project will continue to develop as I have time for side projects.
Ammo Selection
Since this gun has a 19-inch barrel, it is on par with most defensive shotguns, so it should work well with slugs or Federal Flite-Control and Tru-Ball slugs. Some range-testing will be necessary to see how well I can hit with either, as well as confirming group/patterns. The survival shotgun is very lightweight, so I will stick with the lower-recoil varieties of these loads (1300 fps or so). Even with low-recoil ammo, my experience shooting this gun shows it to be…vigorous.
For small-game hunting loads I’m a big fan of Remington Express #6 shot, having killed a bunch of rabbits and squirrels with it a a younger man. I may upgrade to #5 shot due to the short barrel length. This will extend my range a bit and give me a better chance on squirrel, rabbit, grouse, at longer ranges. It might even give me a chance on bigger animals like turkey. I considered a couple rounds of #8 or #9 shot for pot-shots on birds…then I realized that outside of doves, I don’t know any birds you’d shoot with very light shot.
I still have some patterning work to do with this gun to see where she stands. Standby for that in a future article.
The Survival Kit
So far this thing is just a small shotgun, but now we finally get to my favorite part: the survival kit! There isn’t a ton of room in the Choate forend but I wanted to make the best possible use of it. It might seem silly to include a survival kit. It occurred to me that if I were carrying this shotgun I would likely have a pretty substantial survival kit with me.
Then I reconsidered. It never hurts to have a backup, and I want my single-shot survival shotgun to be a standalone survival kit. Were I in a survival situation, it might be nice to be able to leave my shelter without my entire pack and still know I had some survival basics on me. The Choate Store-Arm has a decent amount of space. It has three cavities: 1 – 1″ x 1.5″, 1 – 5.5″ x 1.5″, and 3″ x 1.5″. I found that the divider between the 5.5 and 1″ cavities is moveable, so I customized their spaces slightly.
The forearm has a thumb screw for quick, easy removal. If I could change one thing about this product: the thumb screw would be captive. It comes all the way out and, in my opinion, is begging to be dropped and lost.
I finally landed on the idea of painting the head of the thumbscrew with a very bright, flourescent green. Hopefully if it is dropped, it can be found. Now let’s get into what I put in the kit.
I’m a big fan of Dave Canterbury’s 5 Cs of survival: cutting tool (knife), combustion device (fire starter), cordage, container (for water), and cover (for shelter). Unfortunately I wasn’t able to fit all five of these in this shotgun, but the kit was modeled in this manner. I was able to cover the first three Cs fairly well.
Cutting
I wanted a rock-solid cutting tool in this kit. Initially I thought of putting a small folding knife in here. The more I thought about it the less sense that made. Folding knives require extra bulk to support the folding mechanism and aren’t as robust. A small fixed-blade knife would provide more cutting edge overall, and would be less likely to break. So I began looking for small fixed blade knives.
I didn’t really expect to find much but I ran across an inexpensive “money clip knife” from Schrade, the SCHCC1. This knife is 3.6″ overall and has a 1.9″ blade, and is constructed of 8Cr13MoV steel. It is one, solid piece of steel and I think this is a great little fixed blade for its size. I found the sheath much, much too large to put in the forend, so the knife went in by itself.
I did have to make one minor modification to this blade. It didn’t do a great job striking my ferro rod. I filed the spine to a sharper, 90-degree edge and remove some of the finish. Unfortunately it still doesn’t work great, so I still carry the ferro rod’s striker.
The best part about the Schrade SCHCC1? This thing only cost me $10 on Amazon (this post is showing its age – it’s twice that now!). This knife is definitely worth $10, and I’ll probably pick up a couple for future kits I put together.
Combustion
Being able to start a fire is really, really important. So, I really went heavy on combustion considering the space I had available. Starting a fire in bad weather conditions is both difficult and important. I want to make sure I have what I need to get a fire going. For the fire-starter I used a Light My Fire-brand ferro rod I had in an old kit. It’s very old but works like a charm. It’s pretty small but still big enough to be effective.
To aid in combustion I wanted some high-quality tinder. I added 10 TinderQuik tabs that I vacuum sealed. These aren’t the absolute best tinder (Vaseline cotton balls is, in my opinion) but they’re pretty decent. Each tab burns for about a minute and they light very easily from a spark. I wanted something with a little bit more fire-starting power, though, so I cut down two small pieces of fatwood. Some fatwood shavings on top of a couple TinderQuik tabs – I should definitely be able to make a fire with that in any weather conditions.
Cordage
I added some cordage, both because cordage is important, and because it filled space well. Since being introduced to tarred bank line I’ve come to prefer it over 550 cord for a lot of applications. It’s much more compact than 550 cord, which was important here. I got 12′ of #36 bank line into the first cavity with the knife and the fire steel. I could triple that by un-twising it if needed, and it’s massively more usable than 550-cord guts. That’s a decent amount of cordage in an emergency situation if used wisely.
Why didn’t I make a paracord sling that seems de rigueur on guns like this? I don’t know. Honestly I think it’s a great idea but one thing held me back. The sling swivels on my stock/forend aren’t detachable. This would have meant making the sling more or less permanently attached. I didn’t like that because I certainly wouldn’t want to cut my sling to remove it. Maybe I will reconsider in the future but for now I’m good with the Magpul RLS, a really simple nylon sling.
Bonus Items
I also got a bonus item: almost 10′ of Gorilla tape wrapped around the ferro rod. Gorilla tape is good for damn near everything, including for use as tinder as I learned in the Pathfinder Basic Survival class. The rearmost compartment left me stymied as to what to pack. I wanted to use it for something maximally functional and it took me a while to think of what. Rooting around in my box of flashlights didn’t produce anything that fit. I was also questionable about putting anything battery-powered in this kit. It may sit for years and batteries will leak.
I was cruising “micro survival kits” on YouTube when it hit me. I have an old SOG Crossgrip multi-tool lying around. It came out of a military-issued survival kit and is really nice for it small size. And it fits perfectly. It has a fairly functional pair of pliers with wire cutters, a small knife blade, a file (useful for striking the ferro rod), tweezers, and small/large flat head screwdrivers. I’m really happy I came up with this idea. Unfortunately the Crossgrip has long been discontinued so I can’t recommend it.
I’m sure there’s a bunch of other stuff I could put in this kit. Fishing stuff, first aid stuff, etc. Personally, I prefer a handful of rock-solid capabilities (fire, for instance) than a bunch of partially-satisfied categories.
Late Addition – Oil
At some point during this process I came by a small, plastic envelope of gun oil. It is Sig-branded Slip-2000. I doubt much oil will be needed for a single-shot shotgun, but maintaining the gun would be important in a survival situation. Additionally, oil can be used to help start a fire, making it another multi-purpose addition to the kit.
The Single-Shot Survival Shotgun
Now that I’ve got this thing together let’s take a look at the total package. Overall length, assembled, is 32 1/4 inches long, just a shade shorter than my 870 SBS. This has a 19 1/4-inch barrel, so no need for a tax-stamp, and it’s absolutely 50-state legal. Broken down, it’s only as long as the barrel (19 1/4 inches). And the overall weight of this pig is a hair under pounds. I might have overshot a bit in the weight department; this thing kicks like a mule.
In this tiny package I have a very compact, very simple, very durable 12-gauge shotgun. Though not ideal for defense, I wouldn’t turn my nose up at it. Though not ideal for hunting, it will probably get the job done at most reasonable ranges. I also have some basic survival gear: a rudimentary knife, cordage, a solid ability to start a fire, a multi-tool, and oil to keep the gun itself up and running.
This thing is currently riding in the little “way-back” storage compartment in my SUV…and it’s probably not going anywhere. Wherever I find myself, in whatever situation, if I can get to my vehicle I have a really versatile and powerful tool at my disposal.
Like I said at the beginning, this is still not a complete project. I have some work to do on it, and I’ll try to keep you apprised as I go, but this post is already very long…so I’m going to cut it here. Stay tuned for an update or two on this project!
