doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Opinions on 27” barrels

Totally agree, But, consider that the balance and dynamics may better for a person, with longer barrels. A person with long arms, like myself (35" sleeve) naturally places the front hand farther out on the forend, which means it's farther out from the center of balance. By doing so the perceived MOI is changed and a 30" barrel may feel the same to that person as a 26" might to a shorter armed individual.

Shorter barrels are not exclusively indicative of quick (or good) handling. There are many other factors that go into that, only one of which I just indicated above.

I have a Belgian 12ga SLE “best” gun with the metric equivalent of 27” (it’s 27-1/4” I think) and as much as I’d like to not like that gun I shoot it about as well as anything. It’s choked pretty tight with about 5” of taper and just flat-out kills birds.

Taught me not to judge a gun by its barrel length.

I think it also depends on what you are shooting. For skeet and sporting clays I would want shorter barrels with more open chokes for quicker movement. For trap and hunting, I would want longer barrels and a tighter choke because I am a slow puller/shooter- almost to the point of aiming. Stanton has a good point, too. Shooting trap, I wear an eye patch because I am extremely left eyed dominant. So, I think it also depends on the style of the individual's shooting.

My first pigeon gun was a 70cm barreled Perazzi Mirage. It had 1.35kg barrels and was just light speed fast. I used it for pigeons and bunker. The top barrel could absolutely destroy pigeons at the fence. My best scores with it were 29/30 over pigeons and 24/25 93/100 at the bunker. Nothing wrong with short barrels AFAIC.

Have a day

I was hunting grouse in Canada had trouble with the safe on the gun I was using so I switched to a single trigger g.lewis 26 inch 12 bore I had zero trouble I'm 6 '2 '' and overweight a great great gun that killed grouse and sharptail that gun changed my mind on short barrels.

Short barrels worked out OK for Homer Clark. He won the 1949 Live Bird World Championship, in Madrid, and again in 1951 in Monte Carlo with his Ithaca Magnum frame NID 5E.
The barrels left Ithaca at 30", were later cut, and by his win in 1949 had been jug choked and cut again to 25 1/4".
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Making his last winning kill in Madrid 1949 at 3 minutes

First time I ever watched flyers released from those kind of traps. With nothing to propel the bird they sometimes sit on the ground for a second or two giving the shooter immensely better odds of getting on it before it's nearly to the fence. Barnabee traps in use today propel the bird upwards and give it an electrical shock to "get it going". It would seem to be a huge difference!

Maybe Paul (mel5141) will read this thread and comment on the difference.

I have three guns with 27" barrels; a E.J. Churchill 12 bore O/U, a Scott Premier 12 bore light game gun w/ two sets of 27 1/4" barrels, IC/Mod & Mod/Full, and a Scott Premier 16 bore with 27 1/4" Cyl/Mod bbls. I love them; super fast handling and I'm 6'4" w/ 35" sleeve length. Trends in shotgunning are strange; used to be that everyone wanted 26" barrels for quail guns and light weight. Clays shooting has changed the whole picture. Now, you can hardly give away a short barrelled shotgun, particularly a 12. I've never felt at a disadvantage using one. Sandlapper

I think trends in shooting are no different than trends in clothing. Some are more susceptible to the latest hot fashions. Lots of people jump on a bandwagon lead by a few vocal "experts" and ride for a while before another bandwagon comes along that suddenly looks more attractive. If I can track a bird across the yard with just my finger at the end of my extended arm, I can probably track a bird with a pair of 26" barrels. And so it is.

It would be interesting to see how many guys here could look at a shotgun from 6 feet away, or even hold it in their hands, and know at a glance if it had 27" or 28" barrels without actually using a tape measure.

Barrel length is but one of many factors that may have an effect upon the ability of a shooter to regularly hit a moving target. Guys have mentioned other factors like balance and dynamics, moment of inertia, gun weight, and choke boring. But nobody mentioned gun fit, which I feel may be the hardest thing to overcome while attempting to hit a fast moving target, if it isn't close to correct.