Yes i am quite aware that the barrels are set in as straight as possible to make them & are not bent. I am also fully aware as would be anyone who has followed this board for any length of time with an open mind that it is not 100% given that "ALL" muzzles touch one another on a factory original with un-cut barrels. Numerous instances have been reported on which they did not touch & with barrels which lettered as original to the gun. These will nearly always be found on guns having barrels in the area of 26" length. Obviously there was a reason for this. In drawings extant from the US maker L C Smith, precise angles at which the bores are set to one another by them are given. Also shown is the point in front of the muzzles where a continuation of the bore axises would cross & the distance apart which this same continuation would have at 40 yds. I can assure you that if the gun actually placed its load at the exact point to which the bores point in a static position success with a SxS double would be virtually non-existent. When I used the term "Calculated" I was not necessarily speaking of doing a long mathematical formula, but this most likely came about through trial & error in the early days of double making. Whether you choose to admit it or not, to assemble the two barrels in such a matter as for them to place the load from each barrel to as near as possible to the same point "IS" their regulation. I am not implying here that shot barrels are continuously shot & tweaked but that they are assembled to a pre-determined regulation. There is of course more leeway with a shotgun than a double rifle, but never-the-less for success it is necessary that both barrels shoot to very near the same point.

Miller/TN
I Didn't Say Everything I Said, Yogi Berra