Brent, the RayBar was an Ithaca "thing". You've doubtless seen SKB sxs, made after Ithaca stopped importing them, that have the standard front bead sight.
DLA, back when I first started shooting skeet (early 70's), the vast majority of skeet shooters shot guns with 26" barrels. Seemed to work well enough for them. The difference, I think, is that those guns were not both short and light, which is the case with the Ithaca SKB Model 100 in 20ga, and with most short-barreled sxs. Skeet guns may have been short-barreled and choked for close shots, but they weren't made for grouse and woodcock hunters. Too heavy to tote through the brush.
That being said, Mr. Churchill seems to have done fairly well convincing British shooters that a 25" barreled 12ga can work out quite well on driven birds--which is a game where swing is important, as it is at skeet. His guns were lighter than skeet guns, but heavier than the smallbore shorties--which don't work so well when you get a lot of crossing shots or other opportunities where swing is a big factor.
When I'm hunting grouse and woodcock, I carry a 5 1/2# Parker Reproduction 28ga. I don't own any guns that weigh much over 7 pounds. But I'll shoot consistently better at skeet with a 30" British 12ga that weighs 6 1/2#. Not a typical target gun for sure. Nor, on the other hand, is it the gun I want to carry when I'm wandering through the woods and doing a lot of one-handed carrying. But then swing isn't as big a factor shooting grouse and woodcock as it is at skeet or sporting clays. And weight is a much bigger factor than it is when one is shooting targets.
