Interesting how quickly the old, short shells disappeared. Doesn't take more than a glance at the list of shells available from American ammo makers in my 1940 "Shooter's Bible" to see that there were far more "shorties" out there than the "new" 2 3/4" standard. In one respect, it's too bad they disappeared from the market so quickly. One of the results was a whole lot of chamber-lengthening on older American shotguns (some of which weren't that much "older" at the time)--as well as on a lot of European shotguns. The problem with that being that the old guns weren't built to handle the new (often heavier, often higher pressure) loads.
