Jack, the fact that Churchill built his prototype in 1914 is irrelevant. There was not a lot of sporting gun production in England during WWI. It wasn't until after the war that Churchill began a significant publicity campaign for the gun (mainly because he didn't have any significant number to sell, nor did he have any significant number of potential buyers until then).
The fact that Hellis had been selling guns with 26" barrels earlier is also irrelevant. You keep missing the point, Jack, which is that Churchill clearly assigned "exclusive merit" to his choice of 25" barrels--even breaking with the British tradition of using barrels in even inch increments rather than odd ones. And the proponents of longer barreled guns did not believe that there was "exclusive merit" inherent in longer barrels OF A SPECIFIC LENGTH. There was never such an uproar, for example, between a maker that touted 28" vs one that touted 30". Their only claim was that longer barrels produced higher velocities--which they do, although the advantage is minimal, as established in tests which also involved Churchill's XXV's.
Gough Thomas is the one who suggests the relationship between a shooter's build and barrel length. For years, the British trade regarded anything other than a 12 as a woman's or youth's gun--based largely on lighter gun weight for a lighter individual. So why not shorter barrels for a shorter individual (as 2-Piper also suggests)--and of course shorter barrels generally reduce weight also.
The facts remain, Jack: There were fewer buyers of fine guns immediately after the war than before, because a lot of those potential buyers never came back from France. There were more guns (with longer barrels) on the second-hand market. So whether the XXV had any "exclusive merit"--which, as Thomas points out, is an absurd claim--suggesting that it did and using that as a marketing ploy was a clever sales pitch on Mr. Churchill's part. The only merit the XXV has is relative to the needs, wants, and taste of the potential buyer in question--which is also true of a gun with any other barrel length.
