the longest barrel
 

i was just setting here wondering what was the longest barrel on a shotgun did parker brothers ever make...charlie

Charlie, in a quick scan of the tables in the back of Vol. II of TPS I see eleven 40" eight-gauge guns listed. I thought I remembered a 42" gun being made but I may be wrong. Parker Bros catalogs I have read list barrels as long as 40" could be made by special order.

Dean

I've seen a 40" 8 gauge at the Southern. What a hoss. Isn't there a 36" 12 out there somewhere?

I believe Walter P. Chrysler had a 16 ga with 40" barrels.

Here is some information I collected for a Parker Pages article that never came together. I suspect that 40 is the answer and the two larger are type-o's that could easily be 40 too.

Robin, can you comment on the 46" and 50" guns shown in your list?

Okay, I see where you comment on "the two larger" possibly being typos

What would the practical advantage be of using barrels that long? What would their effective range be? Just pondering.....

If you're out of ammo you can smack the ducks and geese out of the sky with it. :whistle:

Their use was the focus of the Parker Pages article I collected the information for, but I couldn't come up with a reasonable answer. Maybe someone will have some knowledge on the thinking back in the day on the use of "long tom" barrels.

Maybe more power/velocity due to a more fully burned powder charge... This, I think would be more necessry in the bigger gauges like the 10 and especially the 8.