Jack, the fact that Churchill built his prototype in 1914 is irrelevant.
It is relevant when someone conjectures that the gun was a "pure and simple" marketing ploy for the unforeseeable post-WWI market.
The fact that Hellis had been selling guns with 26" barrels earlier is also irrelevant.
It is relevant when someone conjectures that the XXV's shorter barrels were a "new gimmick" in the 1920s because of all the 28" and 30" guns on the market.
You keep missing the point, Jack, which is that Churchill clearly assigned "exclusive merit" to his choice of 25" barrels--
That may now be
your point, Larry. You introduced it, and no one else here has been arguing it. Perhaps it is irrelevant.
Jack, you remain the Arthur Murray of the BB, dancing all around the key points.
You are not paying enough attention to two key words--one from your own posts, one from mine. First, yours: prototype. Just because Mr. Churchill built a prototype in 1914, that does not tell us--unless you can come up with further documentation, to include samples of his advertising and production records--that Churchill actually promoted the XXV, and started producing them in any kind of quantity, until AFTER WWI. Production of an item does not automatically start immediately following the development of a prototype--and in fact, quite often does not. He didn't have to think of it as a "marketing gimmick" when he built the prototype, but he quite clearly touted the merits of his 25" barrels, over guns with barrels of other lengths, once he actually started producing and marketing the guns. Do you really think he was doing that before the end of the war? Any proof?
And now to "exclusive". Did Mr. Churchill suggest that Hellis' 26" guns were an advantage over the more common 28-30" barrels, or did he go directly--without passing go and without collecting $200--go to a different (and unique) barrel length, for which he claimed EXCLUSIVE merits? He certainly could've made 26" barrels, just as Hellis had been doing. So why didn't he? To set his guns apart, as having EXCLUSIVE merits and as being unique. And that, Jack, is the very definition of a marketing ploy. I learned to drive on my dad's 1958 Dodge, with "push button" drive. Was push button drive any better than the common "three on the tree" automatics offered by Ford and GM? No . . . they all did the same thing. But by doing something different, Chrysler gave itself the same sort of marketing ploy Churchill did with his 25" barrels.
Jack, we all accept that Churchill made fine guns--but he was more of a businessman than he ever was an innovator in the gun world. So says the late Geoffrey Boothroyd: "Although not a practical gunmaker, Robert Churchill had some firm ideas about sporting guns . . . The appearance of smokeless powders, which did not require lengthy barrels for complete combustion, meant that the concept of a short barrelled, lightweight game gun could be advocated by Robert, and this he did with some considerable success."
So if you want to argue that Churchill's XXV didn't have more to do with marketing than it did with any other aspect of the gun business, Jack . . . well then, you only need to stand against two of the foremost British shotgun authorities on that issue: Boothroyd and Thomas. And once again, that does not mean that they aren't good guns--although not the best choices for all shooters, and there certainly isn't any "exclusive merit" to 25" barrels over 26" or 28" or 30".
