I go along with Researcher that it was a clever marketing ploy. Whether it "works" for some people is an entirely different matter . . . but it was a means of selling guns, pure and simple.
Larry, you suggest that the XXV was designed for the post-WWI "British gun trade in the 20s." You were wrong; the Hellis article clearly states that Churchill made a prototype in 1914, when no one could have anticipated the course or outcome of that war.
You argue that that the shorter barrels were a new "gimmick" because "the second hand market was flooded with 12s with 28" and 30" barrels." But Hellis had been selling shorter-barreled guns more than a decade earlier.
You suggest that
barrel length should somehow be determined according to the shooter's height or girth. I doubt there is a respected gun fitter who would agree with that.
Your quote from Gough Thomas about "the modern low-roofed motor car" being "grossly unsuited to a really tall or long-bodied man" is rather dated - cars today are considerably lower-roofed than in Thomas' time, and suit people who are - on average - taller. Do selective quotes from Gough Thomas have any value? Here's one: "there are good practical arguments for barrels shorter than 28 inches."
No one denies that Churchill was a salesman, and a pugnacious one. When he introduced his XXV, other gunmakers attacked it in the
Field. They argued that the XXV's shorter barrels would deliver insufficient shot velocity - in other words, they too believed there was "some exclusive merit attaching" to certain barrel lengths. In the end, Churchill proved their arguments wrong, but his combative defense of the XXV made a lot of enemies in the process.
