Most purpose-built live pigeon guns were fairly heavy, tightly choked, and had no safety, and they often had long barrels of 32", 34", and even longer. The heavy weight was desired because of the recoil and number of heavy loads fired. Toward the end of the days of live pigeon shooting, the gun weight was limited to 8 lbs. Supposedly, the reason for no safety was due to the large amount of money wagered in these events. No ardent competitor wanted to miss even a single bird due to forgetting to disengage a safety. This was also a reason why Syracuse Lefevers were built with a feature to disable the safety.
