Many of the guns being discussed were made before sporting clays had become popular or brought to the U.S. They are guns that can obviously be shot at sporting clays but were not designed specifically for sporting clays. FWIW: A Beretta catalog from the early 90's (a few years after sporting clays was introduced in the States) lists their dedicated Sporting models (A390 through SO5) as being available in either 28" or 30" barrels. I recall Digweed tried 34" barrels for a while before settling back to 32's. Olympic skeet remains the domain of 28" and 30" barrels. The point is not whether Brandon Powell can outshoot me using a clapped-out 26" Browning BSS: I'm betting he can. The point is whether he could shoot the same gun to beat Anthony Matarese et al. Probably not...
The Browning BSS and the Spanish gun could, however, lead to a good day in the grouse woods, for Brandon, Anthony, yourself, or, little old me.
Just sayin’.
Best,
Ted
