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I don't know what percentage of pre-WWII American doubles left the factories with recoil pads, but my 1940 Shooters Bible does show recoil pads as a factory option on Parker, Smith, Fox, and Iver Johnson doubles. Interestingly, the only double I find on which a pad was factory standard equipment is the Stevens 530.

On foreign shotguns, if choke isn't marked, you'll have difficulty determining what the original constriction was even if you can access records. I owned a pair of Army & Navy 12 bores on which I had the complete records. No indication of choke. And when the barrel on a Brit double says "choke", all that tells you is that the gun came from the factory with some constriction--but maybe as little as .004.

You can look at factory photo's by the dozens, from all the manufacturer's and see rack after rack after rack of finished guns ready to ship and none of them will have pads.....any maker, any factory, any date from 1880 up through 1940.....

No doubt any factory would install a pad if you "special ordered" a gun built to particular buyer specs. After all, they were in business to make money, and if you throw enough money at something they would build pretty much anything you want...same still holds true today....but this, of course, is just common sense......

But I don't think every pre-war gun on GunBroker or Guns International today with a pad was a special ordered gun, that scenario would be rediculous, just look at the trim levels of those guns in the ads......

The same holds true with choke boring on American Guns where records are available and usually show the choke boring, over 95%+ of the pre-war guns left the factory with Modified choke in the right barrel and Full choke in the left barrel. These choke borings fit the ammunition of the day and still do today if one shoots the proper load.

Even Annie Oakley's presentation guns, and most other pre-WWII presentation guns, did not have a factory pad as presented from the various factories......

The Sterlingworth Deluxe, as offered by Savage from about 1930 on, was a model defined by its factory-standard features of a recoil pad and twin ivory beads.

Of course a pad was an add-on in most cases. But then so were single triggers, ejectors, beavertail forends, vent ribs . . . and there are plenty of doubles that came from the various factories with those options. If we're talking field grade guns, certainly the majority were double trigger, extractor, and didn't have a pad. But the odds of finding any of the options increased as you move up in grade. And certainly M/F was the most common choke combination, especially on guns with 28" barrels. But if you go down in barrel length, you're more likely to find more open chokes than on 28"; longer than 28", more likely to find F/F. And having owned a couple 28" Flues guns with barrels marked 0/4, I think 95%+ is more than a bit high when applied to ALL prewar American sxs.

As an example, Hunter Arms, who built more guns than Parker, Fox, Iver Johnson, Crescent and the offshoots, Ithaca etc. each individually.......produced 176,116 guns from 1913 through 1945.....the bottom two grades which were stocking items at all the hardware stores, Sears and other retail outlets and catalogs, ....SO, off the shelf guns were 93% of Hunter Arms gun business for that period.....according to the records.....

Of course single triggers and other ginger bread items were not common on the lower grades.....because THEY COST almost as much AS THE GUN DID and that's a NO BRAINER......

Hunter Arms sold, during that period, 12,360 high grade guns and 163,756 low grade guns.....that's about 7%.....

Wouldn't you say that was the bulk of their business, I sure would. So who would you cater to, your sales bread and butter or the group that could NOT support your business entirely.......?....Again, common sense raises it's hand......

People before WWII didn't piss money away on guns like they do today because they did not have it, especially during the depression when people stood in food lines.......So the lower offerings, according to the records, were the top sellers......