eeb, I was just about to bring up Churchill. Thanks! He played mind games with perception, short barrels, and the Churchill rib.
Stan, an outdoor writer named L.P. Brezny used to live in the Twin Cities. There were places where it was legal to hunt waterfowl fairly close to "civilization", but Brezny often had to deal with guys in uniform checking to see what all the shooting was about so early in the morning. So he developed something called the "Metro Barrel" (eventually Hastings made them) that was REALLY long and screwed onto a regular shotgun barrel. Then Federal developed some sub-sonic steel loads to go with it. The darned thing sounded about like a .22.
Anyhow, Federal hosted a bunch of outdoor writers, and we got to try it out. The Metro Barrel, surprisingly, did not add a lot of weight. Straightaways were OK, but swinging the thing really felt odd. But as long as that barrel was, perceived lead on a crosser would have been reduced to about nothing, assuming that theory is correct . . . although there is the issue of the greatly reduced velocity of those sub-sonic loads.
