Actually I like Steve's distinction between "custom" and "customized". Works for me.
Guns ordered with special features from the factory, whether original manufacture or "aftermarket" factory work, I have always called "special order" guns. I think this would cover guns from the "custom shops" of manufacturers who have a standard retail line of guns. Think I picked that distinction up from Ken Waters, but it is common usage among gun collectors. I don't think we need to distinguish between those and the products of the small manufacturers in Big Timber, for example. An original 1885 with a 36" barrel and almost any Big Timber 'wall or Sharps are all "special order." NOT a big deal.
(I've never known where that "-ized" suffix came from, and generally don't like it much. In this particular case it seems to me that it functions perfectly, for once.).
