doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com 25" barrels

Churchill put a special rib on his XXV's, to give the illusion of a longer barrel. (Also to reduce weight a little, I think.)

Re the SKB's with 25's . . . For me, there's a world of difference between a 20ga Model 100 and a 280 with 25's. The 100 is a great carrying gun, very light, quite a few grouse hunters like them. But they're a challenge when it comes to targets. On the 280, that beavertail--even though I don't care for the way it looks--seems to add enough weight out front to make it into a decent target gun. And still pretty light for hunting.

Very well said --- possibly transcendent!!

All else being more or less equal, shorter barrels equire less muscle effort (lower MOI) to be pointed in a different direction (swing), both from between-the-hands and from the shoulder.

Handling dimensions/measurements/facts, like stock dimensions, need to be fitted to the individual and the purpose of the gun. "My grouse and trap gun ---" is a bit of a firearms oxymoron. "My grouse and casual skeet gun ---" makes more sense. Some have the "touch" to shout low swing effort guns well and others have "touch" not.

25-inch SxSs take a bit of getting used to but they are really sweet guns once mastered.

If you're not afraid of them you can get very good buys in used XXVs.

An ill-fitted gun is more apparent with longer barrels--the sight elevation as you look uphill, up the rib is immediately apparent. With a shorter barrel, fitting may be even more crucial, to lock in the right elevation, since minor changes might not appear so much to the eye. Some guns just seem better than others with shorter barrels. (of course the autos and pumps add six inches to the sight plane because of the top of the action.)One thing is sure--they are handy in the grouse woods, and maybe for quail situations at times. Another reason why the full chokes on drillings could have benefitted from screw in chokes or more open chokes. They are largely woods guns, and the shorter barrels don't bang into the trees, but full chokes and grouse don't mix that well without spreader loads. Steve

I am 70 years old and went woodcock hunting today carrying a 5.15 Fox ejector.Plan to go back Thursday and will take my favorite 5.4 extractor Fox,both 20s with 26 inch barrels.Weight make a big difference for me. Bobby

Ibo ught a couple of SKB 20's both with 25" tubes. I believe I killed more birds with that gun,than any other I ever owned. Why I traded it, I will never know...

Not necessarily so, Dave. I have shot a Valmet O/U, that belongs to a close friend, that has 36" "waterfowl" barrels. They are so well struck and balanced (don't even have a top rib) that you would think you were shooting a good handling 30" Perazzi. They are absolutely amazing to swing, and are equally so to look at. The look more like 16 ga. than 12 ga., which is what they are.

You just can't say that long barrels are harder to get moving and harder to stop. It's all in where the weight is deposited in the gun. or, as Don describes it, the compactness of the gun.

JMO, SRH

I shot a 25" W&S 728 and killed hundreds of doves with it until I started reading about how longer barrels were better. Bought a 28" Ruger Red label and a Parker 28" repo both also 28 gauges. Several thousand Dollars later and I still can not shoot them like I did the Webley. I think I will get it out of the safe and try to forget what I have read. I also have a 20 ga SKB 280. Best % gun I ever had back when we still had wild quail.

It took me a while to figure out my AYA XXV. (I was going to say "master" it, but that might be tooo optimistic.)Now that I've shot it a while, it's great fun and shoots where I want. My Merkel drillings are in effect XXVs too, and they work for me.

I have an 12 bore AYA XXV that has turned into my favorite bird gun. It is amazingly responsive (not surprisingly) but yet controllable with the right technique. I have shot it at sporting clays as well as skeet and as long as I use a low gun approach, it works very well. The idea that Churchill had with these guns, I believe, is similar to the way many sporting clay shooters track a target today - track the target (bird) with the muzzles while inserting ahead of the target on the flight line, track for a short distance and pull the trigger - sort of a precursor to the Move Mount Shoot approach.
The gun is not designed for pre mounted games like American Skeet where a muzzle heavy or at least high MOI gun is dominant. It excels in rapid target acquisition such as birds in cover but is also very capable of being very effective when used with the proper technique with longer pheasant shots.
Overall, I am impressed with the gun and the dynamics but it is certainly an �acquired taste� as I most often shoot a 30-32� target gun with much different dynamics. Even my 28� game guns seem slow compared to the AYA but it is great fun to shoot. YMMV
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