When did the increased desirability of longer barrels begin & why is that so?

[MrBojangles]

Decades ago, a shorter set of barrels, like 26”, were more popular, or so I believe. A compact shotgun for use in woods & thicket, for grouse & woodcock.

Now, it seems shorter barrel lengths are increasingly unpopular, and longer ones are desired. Why is that so? Perhaps a longer sighting plane as hunting for game birds has diminished and the most a shotgun might do now is shatter a clay pigeon? Or…???

[James L. Martin]

I think Sporting Clays played a large part. I saw barrel length go from 28" to 30" then to 32" in fast order in the game. Why? Because most people shot better with longer barrels.

[Harold Pickens]

With the plummeting population of game birds, grouse, woodcock, quail etc, longer barrels came into popularity shooting clays.

[Jay Oliver]

I like extremes on either side of the spectrum 24" and 32" or 34". I find I can shoot sporting clays well enough with short barrels. Although long barrels look so good!

[Woodcock survey]

If you think it will improve your shooting it will. The human mind is very susceptible to suggestion. Believe a shell, shot size, palm swell, barrel length and on and on. If you believe it will it will. For a time.

[edgarspencer]

The lovers of 'quick' short barrels are alive and well, but 28 is the new 26. My dad, in his later years, favored 26" guns, but remarked that when he was growing up, everyone wanted a 30" gun. I keep a few still, but like my 28" and 30" guns equally. They look good arranged that way too. I think, like so many other things we feel strongly about, these things go in cycles.

[Researcher]

Must have begun when Jack O'Connor retired from being the Shooting Editor of Outdoor Life. His nearly forty years of extolling the virtues of 26-inch barrels had a lot of folks in the 1960s & 70s taking hacksaws to those old 30- and 32-inch guns!! I have mostly favored 28-inch barrels on a break-action gun and 26-inch on a pump or auto. I can't prove it, but I bet I shot a lot more ducks with the 28-inch barrels on my Super-Fox than I did with its original 32-inchers. Did shoot a lot of trap in my college years with those long barrels.

[Jeff Elder]

I’m leaning towards the decline of upland birds and the popularity of duck gunning and sporting clays.

[6pt-Sika]

You can bet your backside if I had the J Cliff Green skeet set I’d shoot the hell out of them both at skeet and dove/quail . However in the last four or five years I’ve gained an affection for 32” guns and use them at pheasant tower shoots . When I was a younger fellow I thought 26” and possibly 28” were bird length while 30” and above were duck goose length . Now things kinda merge !

[6pt-Sika]

Thirtyfive or so years ago I had a pair of 16 gauge Citori’s I shot A LOT . One was a 24” Upland Special that killed a fair number of grouse and quail . The other was a 28” Lightening that one was my dove and sporting clays gun .