There is a reason why tutorials are out there... so you follow and learn from them - not to look at them and do the opposite. why dont you see if you can follow the tutorial first and get the same result and then do something on your own after... all in all, I would suggest you should watch the tutorial as you personally…
I made this over the weekend, yes I am aware that there is a tutorial on how to make M37 shotgun, but this was entirely on my own, using different techniques from what the tutorial did, I just thought making my own version would be cool thing to do. :)
I also did a M37 Shotgun the past few days, from the tutorial I think you're talking about.. My model is: 4,132 Tris 2,198 Verts 17,000 is way too much for a game. Did you not bake out a normal map from the high-poly and optimize that down to a low-poly?
Ahh, I understand now why your model is so dense: it's divided into quads. Optimize it into tris, as that's what game engines typically use (included the Gears of War engine you referenced earlier) and that polycount could be a lot better. Also, I think the strongest part of the tutorial everyone's talking about is the…