I was wondering what the collective thought was on 25" barrels. I've seen them before on SKBs, and on other doubles, but not nearly as often as 26" barrels on other brands. Any downside for a 25" as compared to a 26" barrel?

Personal choice. Some love them ,others dont. For some reason they have gone out of fasion. 20 years ago the big seller in the US seemed to be 26". Personaly I dont think an inch either way makes a difference be it 25/26 . 27/28 . OR 29 /30 .

Factory 25" barrels and factory 26" barrels, in my opnion, are exactly the same for both function and price.

Best,

Mike

I believe Churchill made them popular back when. Used for more of a point and shoot method.

I have a few 26" guns and shoot them as well as 29" guns I have. Longer might have an edge for crossing shots, but if both guns are balanced at the same point what's the advantage of one over the other?

I have SxSs in 25 1/2", & 26", and an O/U with 26 1/2" barrels. I love them all. No downside at all.

I shot a 280 25 inch SkB in 70s some and i was deadly with it on bobwhites. Bobby

I have a Garbi 100 with two sets of 25" barrels, SK/SK and IC/M. It is a great grouse gun in heavy cover. I'm only 5'8" so some of the longer tubes don't handle too well for me. 28" is the longest I go.

CRB

I'm 6'1" and prefer 28" barrels for hunting at this point in my life. I learned how to shoot with a Browning super with 26" barrels and shot it well as a kid. I've often wondered if shooters with small stature might shoot 25-26" barrels better than taller individuals. I think it probably boils down to what you get used to. I have a 26" SxS that I don't shoot much, but when I do I can hit with it pretty well, but I still prefer 28" barrels.

I think the difference (some call it an advantage) is that longer barrels, even if balanced exactly the same as shorter, will have a different moment of inertia and will therefore both acquire and shed momentum more slowly than shorter barrels. That is, the longer barrels will take longer to get moving and will keep moving in a swing when shorter barrels could and would stop. Balance fore and aft is one thing, momentum in swinging the gun, another.

In my case a previous owner removed 1" from a 20 ga. SKB, making the barrels 24" cyl/cyl. Its a lethal point & shoot cottontail gun, but on the skeet range its like swinging a drinking straw.

Churchill put a special rib on his XXV's, to give the illusion of a longer barrel. (Also to reduce weight a little, I think.)

Re the SKB's with 25's . . . For me, there's a world of difference between a 20ga Model 100 and a 280 with 25's. The 100 is a great carrying gun, very light, quite a few grouse hunters like them. But they're a challenge when it comes to targets. On the 280, that beavertail--even though I don't care for the way it looks--seems to add enough weight out front to make it into a decent target gun. And still pretty light for hunting.

Very well said --- possibly transcendent!!

All else being more or less equal, shorter barrels equire less muscle effort (lower MOI) to be pointed in a different direction (swing), both from between-the-hands and from the shoulder.

Handling dimensions/measurements/facts, like stock dimensions, need to be fitted to the individual and the purpose of the gun. "My grouse and trap gun ---" is a bit of a firearms oxymoron. "My grouse and casual skeet gun ---" makes more sense. Some have the "touch" to shout low swing effort guns well and others have "touch" not.

25-inch SxSs take a bit of getting used to but they are really sweet guns once mastered.

If you're not afraid of them you can get very good buys in used XXVs.

An ill-fitted gun is more apparent with longer barrels--the sight elevation as you look uphill, up the rib is immediately apparent. With a shorter barrel, fitting may be even more crucial, to lock in the right elevation, since minor changes might not appear so much to the eye. Some guns just seem better than others with shorter barrels. (of course the autos and pumps add six inches to the sight plane because of the top of the action.)One thing is sure--they are handy in the grouse woods, and maybe for quail situations at times. Another reason why the full chokes on drillings could have benefitted from screw in chokes or more open chokes. They are largely woods guns, and the shorter barrels don't bang into the trees, but full chokes and grouse don't mix that well without spreader loads. Steve

I am 70 years old and went woodcock hunting today carrying a 5.15 Fox ejector.Plan to go back Thursday and will take my favorite 5.4 extractor Fox,both 20s with 26 inch barrels.Weight make a big difference for me. Bobby

Ibo ught a couple of SKB 20's both with 25" tubes. I believe I killed more birds with that gun,than any other I ever owned. Why I traded it, I will never know...

Not necessarily so, Dave. I have shot a Valmet O/U, that belongs to a close friend, that has 36" "waterfowl" barrels. They are so well struck and balanced (don't even have a top rib) that you would think you were shooting a good handling 30" Perazzi. They are absolutely amazing to swing, and are equally so to look at. The look more like 16 ga. than 12 ga., which is what they are.

You just can't say that long barrels are harder to get moving and harder to stop. It's all in where the weight is deposited in the gun. or, as Don describes it, the compactness of the gun.

JMO, SRH

I shot a 25" W&S 728 and killed hundreds of doves with it until I started reading about how longer barrels were better. Bought a 28" Ruger Red label and a Parker 28" repo both also 28 gauges. Several thousand Dollars later and I still can not shoot them like I did the Webley. I think I will get it out of the safe and try to forget what I have read. I also have a 20 ga SKB 280. Best % gun I ever had back when we still had wild quail.

It took me a while to figure out my AYA XXV. (I was going to say "master" it, but that might be tooo optimistic.)Now that I've shot it a while, it's great fun and shoots where I want. My Merkel drillings are in effect XXVs too, and they work for me.

I have an 12 bore AYA XXV that has turned into my favorite bird gun. It is amazingly responsive (not surprisingly) but yet controllable with the right technique. I have shot it at sporting clays as well as skeet and as long as I use a low gun approach, it works very well. The idea that Churchill had with these guns, I believe, is similar to the way many sporting clay shooters track a target today - track the target (bird) with the muzzles while inserting ahead of the target on the flight line, track for a short distance and pull the trigger - sort of a precursor to the Move Mount Shoot approach.
The gun is not designed for pre mounted games like American Skeet where a muzzle heavy or at least high MOI gun is dominant. It excels in rapid target acquisition such as birds in cover but is also very capable of being very effective when used with the proper technique with longer pheasant shots.
Overall, I am impressed with the gun and the dynamics but it is certainly an “acquired taste” as I most often shoot a 30-32” target gun with much different dynamics. Even my 28” game guns seem slow compared to the AYA but it is great fun to shoot. YMMV
Z

I had one of the AyA XXV's in 20ga. Nice gun to carry, but I could not do much with it at skeet. Also had one of the old Uggies imported by Parker-Hale, 28ga in XXV configuration. Even worse, as far as hitting anything, than the AyA. I think Churchill's concept worked better on guns that weigh a bit more than a many short-nosed 20's or 28's. As I noted above, putting additional weight on a 25" gun, like that BT on an SKB 280 20ga, definitely helps me.

Here's a AE Fox 16 gauge with 20" and 25" barrels. One cool woodcock and grouse gun for here in the northeast. Also, check out the rounded stock cheeks as were intro'd years later on SP Foxes. Factory record card is marked "Special". Silvers

Are both sets of barrels serialized to the gun?

Yes both barrels are serialed to the frame. And so are the stock, forend wood and iron. Those Foxy types here will also note the wrist is a little longer than typical for a capped pistol grip Fox..... Special notation on the card. Silvers

Good article on a couple of 25's in this isue of DGJ...

The old golf pro I apprenticed with once said to me"Laddy, you don't have to be dumb to play this game well, but it sure doesn't hurt". His point of course was the less thinking you do about what you do, the better.

I guess I have taken that into every motor skill endeavour I do, like golf, baseball,water sking and shooting.

I might have found things more difficult if I shot at many crossers, but hunting the Uplands to the exclusive, I have never had any problem shooting any of the guns I have gone afield with, whether they utilized 26 inch tubes or 30 inchers.

You're quite correct. Re-reading what I wrote, I think I meant and was trying to say what you said, only you said it much better than I did.