“No one ever wishes they bought a gun with a shorter barrel.” That’s my usual advice when people ask which barrel length they should choose.
It’s rarely those last 2 inches of barrel that cause the problem.
You could argue then that a gun cut down to the legal minimum would be the best choice.
If you want to take that argument to the absurd extreme, a Taurus Judge .410 revolver becomes the ideal grouse gun.
My SKB 100 with 25 inch barrels was a very compact gun, but I couldn’t hit anything but a straightaway woodcock with it.
Personally I’d rather hunt with a gun I know I can hit with and take my chances with the brush.
I put the barrel length question to him.
He said “Funny you should ask.
My normal grouse gun has 26-inch barrels, but I took my 28-inch o/u into the woods last time.
The longer the barrel, the more branches it hits.
“No one ever wishes they bought a gun with a shorter barrel.” That’s my usual advice when people ask which barrel length they should choose. And, notwithstanding the fact that I missed my best chance at a ruffed grouse in Minnesota last month when I swung my 28-inch-barreled gun into a tree, I am standing by that answer.
It’s rarely those last 2 inches of barrel that cause the problem. When I have run afoul of branches in the brush, I’ve hit the limb somewhere close to what would be the sweet spot if I were swinging a baseball bat at birds instead of shooting at them.
You could argue then that a gun cut down to the legal…
