Probably a Silly Question - Barrel Length

[A Stop at Willoughby]

As near as I am to certain, have historically used shotguns w/a 28" barrel. In fact, also have a Alcione o/u Titanium set (12 ga./20 ga.) with 28" barrels.

The gun shoots beautifully.

My stepfather made mention of him not keeping a particular gun that he won through his work and one of the things he mentioned was that "it had a 28" barrel..."

Other than "two inches," what is the difference between a 28" and 26" barrel? Does the 26" have any technical advantage?

Also, does anyone have (or has shot) one of the Highlander side-by-sides? Thoughts?

Thanks in advance.

[fezman]

in a nut shell the shorter the bbl the less the effective range of the gun and the more recoil.
26" guns are used for close shooting of small things like farm raised planted quail or skeetshooting were a wider pattern is more effective. the longer the bbl the tighter the patern the the higher the muzzle veloicty many trap shooters water fowl hunters will use a 30-32" bbl for the tighter patern at longer distences. to make up the diferences you can screw in differnt chokes into a shorter gun to tighten the pattern to give you a more effective range this will also apply to the longer bbl giving you evan greater reach. 28" is the middle of the road type of thing to give you more versatility. dragging a 32" shot gun through the brush all day is a pain in the butt but laying in a duck blind its not a problem. realy is guess it comes down to prefernce and application. i have a 18.5 for home defence (realy wide pattern but a **** of a kick and the muzzle blast alone is enough to scare any thing) i use a 28 for hunting upland birds and shooting clays and i just have 2 differnt chokes in each tube. i use a cylnder/skeet choke in tube 1 and an ic or modified in tube 2 with a heaver load just incase i have to reach out and touch something.

[A Stop at Willoughby]

Thanks for your input. That helps.

[CptButter]

The barrel length makes a negligible difference. Remeber this is a smooth bore barrel, length has very little to do with effective range. It's more a prefrence. Some hunters like shorter barrels to help swing in dense cover, competition shooters like longer barrels because the added barrel weight helps keep th gun swinging. Barrel length has nothing to do with spread either, that's all up to the choke tube. It's an old myth going back to blackpowder days when all shotguns were cylinder bore and people believed a longer barrel gave tigher spreads. As for the Highlander it's not out and I last I heard there's no date for it to come out. Some sort of production issue.

[birddog]

.. the Highlander is out in all gauges listed .. I've seen them at retailers for quite a while.

Velocities will increase generally 5-6fps per inch of barrel ... thats 'generally' 30-36fps from 24" to 30" barrel

.. use the same loads and you'll have a wider spread

.. try it once don't let me tell you this