Too bad you chose to wander into the area of what some people choose, Jack, because that's not what this is about. And it's a poor attempt to deflect from the issue at hand. If an XXV has "exclusive merit"--then show me the proof of same, and I will concede that it wasn't just a marketing ploy for Mr. Churchill. (And there's nothing wrong with it as a marketing ploy--but it seems that some people have to search far and wide for nonexistent proof that it's anything other than that, just because it's what they happen to like. Touche, Jack.)
Let's compare Churchill's XXV to a couple other marketing ploys in the side by side world, from approximately the same time period: The Super Fox's extremely tight patterns from Becker-bored barrels, and the Winchester 21 "violent proof" test. The fact that the Super Fox with Becker-bored barrels threw incredibly tight patterns was indeed used in the company's ads (and particularly touted by Nash Buckingham, one of the leading outdoor writers of the time, and his own Super Fox, "Bo Whoop".) Likewise, Winchester proudly proclaimed the fact that their Model 21 digested over 2,000 proof loads without any damage--long after all the other doubles tested had failed. The difference is that both of those "marketing ploys" were fact-based. The only "fact" Churchill could proclaim about his XXV was that established in tests conducted by "The Field", which is that it was not inferior to guns with longer barrels in terms of velocity. "My guns are just as good as the rest . . ." Pretty easy to understand why he didn't use that as the basis of a sales campaign!
So Jack . . . all your bombast and pomposity won't get you there. You want to establish "exclusive merit" for the XXV--as Fox and Winchester clearly did, for their guns in the marketing ploys they used (Super Fox patterns tighter, Win 21 is stronger)--then back it up with demonstrable fact. Higher scores at skeet, maybe, for people shooting 25" guns? (But wait . . . the trend has been to LONGER barrels, not shorter ones.) Better results in the field . . . well, that's pretty much impossible to measure. So all we have is your hot air, and Mr. Churchill's--which makes the XXV exactly what it was: a marketing ploy without any exclusive merit behind it. Sorry, but you'll just have to live with that, Jack.
And before you get carried away with the "widely imitated" thing, you might want to check various dealers that specialize in British guns, and see how many 25's they have in inventory. You might want to check the guns currently being produced by the Spanish, who copy the British game guns more than anyone else, and see how many 25's they're making.
No argument here that Churchill made good guns. No argument either that he had a very clever marketing ploy, which gave him a leg up in an unusually competitive period in the British gun business. But let's not give him credit for inventing sliced bread--or anything else with demonstrably exclusive merit.
