If you shoot it well you will never carer. If you do not shoot it well it will become the reason or excuse for the poor shooting.
Looking back I can not remember more than a very few times barrel length was ever a problem. And in most of them the stuff was so thick that no barrel was short enough and I really should not try shooting. Hard not to want to try when you see a bird after hours of hunting but I have dropped birds into thick stuff that even a good dog has a heck of a time finding.
Barrel length is over-rated. Fit, balance, chokes, shell and shot selection are much more important to me. Even gauge selection is not that big of a deal to me for upland hunting. Hard to be over/under gunned at 25 yards with good choke and shell selection. 25 yards has covered a lot of game for me over the years.
