When an order called for barrels of a particular length, to the best of my knowledge, those barrels would have been cut to exactly that length and on earlier guns sometimes a fraction or two longer. I have not seen evidence of barrels originally cut by the factory shorter than the ordered length.
But Dave's been at this longer than I have so I'll defer to him. 
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"I'm a Setter man.
Not because I think they're better than the other breeds,
but because I'm a romantic - stuck on tradition - and to me, a Setter just "belongs" in the grouse picture."
George King, "That's Ruff", 2010 - a timeless classic.
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