King Brown,I think that you may be overstating the "American" part of your comments. From what I can tell from the literature active/knowledgeable British shotgunners have tended not to be all that inhibited about modifying their shotguns, either.

"Butchering" seems to be in the eye of the beholder. My "useful modification" might be your "butchery.

However, I believe that most can agree that "modification" becomes "butchery" when the work is done badly. IMHO gun work should be at least on a par with the quality that the gun had, to begin with.

Full disclosure: I might be considered a "butcher".

However, I had help. A few years ago, I bought what had been a nice Skimin and Wood BLNE. "Had been" because some duck hunter had "thoughtfully" shortened and bent the stock to fit a corpulent midget, banged the gun around a duckboat/blind and then tried to cover up the damage with Tru-Oil (laid on with a trowel, including in the checkering), allowed pitting to form in the bore, shot steel shot loads in the gun that had obviously been reloaded with insufficient shot protection (thus scratching the bore and bulging the gun's previously tight chokes), and, to top everything off, had used a hand reamer to open up the gun's chokes "rough as a cob" and at least 1/2 pattern off-center.

In the time a have had the gun: I have had the stock professionally refinished and had the stock's checkering "pointed up". I have had a thick recoil pad installed that has increased the LOP to at least something like adult measurements. I have "built up" the comb in a fashion that is consistent with the gun's time period (1920s to 1930s). I have had at least half of a duck marsh removed from the gun's action. I have had the gun's "loosey-goosey" fore end professionally tightened up" (twice). I have had the bores updated by having choke tubes installed (on center) and had the forcing cones lengthened when the scatches and pits were (more or less)polished out. I have also had de-activated the gun's abomination of a automatic safety.

If this be "butchery", then make the most of it. The gun is now useful to me. It was not, before.