Trends come and go, with shotgun barrels and fly rods. 100120 years ago, 30" was quite the standard for doubles(meaning SxS). Then Churchill pushed the 25" double and that fad was in for a while. 40-50 years ago, 26" was the standard for skeet shooting, whether O/Us or repeaters. Then along came the sporting clay crowd and longer barrels came back into vogue. 30" was very popular and some of the strong young hotshots liked 32" and even 34" barrels, usually on their O/Us. I'm comfortable on my older doubles with 30" but like Joe said above, 28" suits me just fine. The longer barrels have an advantage of helping follow-through BUT you have to be able to get them moving, to start with. There is a point of diminishing returns where a gun can be too long and/or too heavy for an old geezer like me to get moving. The gun I shoot best, on an average is my Beretta 390 Sporting Clays Gold/Silver, with 28 barrels. It works fine for me on skeet, clays and even trap. I bought it with a 30" barrel but soon grew tired of the extra length. I was able to trade it for a 28" barrel and have been happier ever since. The sporting clays shooters have brought us some good things, along with a honey wagon load of expensive nonsense, IMO.
