[John Farrell, Charter Member #33]

One of the investments I made several years ago was a set of chamber length gauges from Brownell's. They are a solid steel cylinder with gradations at 2 3/4" and 3" lengths. It is easy to scribe lines for 2 5/8" and 2 9/16" on the blued surface. I use them whenever a new gun shows up unannounced. When out on a scouting trip they are in my car console along with my choke gauges.

Sherman Bell, a regular contributor to Double Gun Journal , had an article in that magazine some years ago in which he described his pressure tests using 2 3/4" hulls in a 2 5/8" and shorter chambers. While there was a pressure spike associated with the longer shells, it was not excessive to a point where he recommended only shooting shorter shells in our old guns. That being said, the practice of trimming hulls to the length to which the gun was designed is a good policy. One does not want to invite the early arrival of the Reaper. It is something I do (shell trimming, that is) regularly with the myriad of tools I own which were made for that chore.