doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com 26" Doubleguns--Are they making a comeback?

Ouch! that hurt. I sold my 391 20g Sporting, thank you very much.

Larry, I should have identified it as SKB Model 500 o/u, maybe one of early ones, marked Mitsui, Ill.

Sorry to say I still have mine as the kid uses it to kick my butt. They're relatively lightweight, and deliberate in MOI terms. Probably less offensive out west as a backup/bad weather gun, huh.

I'd want something that approximates what I use for NSCA - most of my 26"ers fail there.

Would a prewar solid rib "full" M-12 16 work? Oh wait, that one's a 28".

Sam

My bad too, King. I assumed you were talking sxs. The Mitsui-marked guns were the late ones, not the early ones. That came after Ithaca and SKB went their separate ways.

my best upland shooting has always been done with 26 and 27 inch barrels. For me they have always been in style. I have never shoot all that well with longer barrels

Gaining acceptance?, No. No more so than 20 years ago. What happened was that many more shooters discovered the merits of longer barrels. I don't like 26" and shorter barrels, even preferring at least a 28" on a .410 S x S.

IMO, it is silly to debate the merits of barrel length without considering a man's build. Simply put, because of leverage, a 30" barreled gun may handle as quick or quicker for a man with 34" sleeves as a 26" gun will for a short-armed gentleman. I have long arms, and dare say I can handle a 30", maybe even a 32" gun as fast as many can a 25 or 26". It is extremely hard for me to make a short barreled gun slow down and shoot as well as the longer one.

SRH

This may seem backwards, but if a gun doesn't look pleasingly proportional to me I an not attracted to it. With the exception of the really small receivers as used for .410 and 28ga the 25 and 26 inch barrels fall in that category for me. Everything else needs 28 to 30 inches or my eye turns it away. However, I have some very quick 28 and 30 inch guns in 20ga and 16ga and a couple inches of barrel length has to be an imaginary problem vs real.

Some guns may have great attributes, but 26" barrels. I recall a spectacular little number, a highly figured furniture, a mesmerizing action, but she was about 5 foot tall....sorry, I got a little off track here. The point is: there are compensating factors in some guns that can make you enjoy a gun with short barrels even if you could shoot a longer barrel gun better.

Isn't coming in and out of vogue connected with money in a way? I mean, if a category of guns has a property that is considered a disadvantage, say, short barrels, the price of these guns will start to drop, and, like with a downward trend on a stock exchange, the falling prices will mean people start getting rid of that assets, which in turn causes a further drop... until it reaches some minimun point, and some buyers begin to realize, that if they choose a short-barreled gun, the gain in price, as compared to the same gun with normal barrels, would far overweigh the loss in desirability, and start buying more of these guns, which in turn causes an increase in price, which leads other buyers to think there's a new trend, which moves the prices even higher, untul they reach the point of unreasonability, and begin to fall again... See what I mean? Just wondering...

I recently saw a nice pair of AyA XXV 12's--sidelocks with the 25" Churchill-style barrels. Marked at $3K apiece. I'm guessing maybe something closer to $5K would take the pair. The Blue Book shows those guns at the same price as the AyA #2, and a new one of those will cost you $5K, never mind two of them. It's just that right now, doubles with 25" barrels--especially 12's--aren't all that popular.

Mr. Churchill was quite short and fairly stout. The point about the gun fitting the individual is a good one.