98's made into 20ga shotguns retain some of the front lug and locking area to make them usefull. The 12's use only the rear safety lug. 16's are the everpresent in between, with some having no front lugs left at all, and some have just a hint of the old bolt lugs still in place. I've had a few of these and seen alot of them and have never seen one 'come apart' from normal use. The rear locking lug (safety lug) only lockup is just as strong as most any other B/A shotgun made that uses the root of the bolt handle against the receiver wall for locking surface. One thing they do suffer from is the separate bolt head part of the conversion is only held on by the extractor. It can come off rather easily on some guns and get lost. Further, the shotgun can still fire with the bolt head missing which wouldn't be pleasent at all. Most are made with sportered military stocks, though there are some (made by Remo IIRC) that have stocks that are shaped as nicely as any prewar German sporter rifle. Personally I would keep my loads in the same range as smokeless loads for use in damascus. Then there are the M98 B/A shotguns with the single shot rifle barrel underneath. Last one I saw was at a gun show about 15+ years ago. Can't remember how the rifle part of the conversion worked. Caliber was large (44 or something close to it). It was 'Remo' marked and 20ga for the B/A shotgun portion of the conversion. Should have paid more attention then..
