doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com 25" Barrelled Shotguns

Years ago I inherited a LC Smith 16 gauge with 26 inch barrels that my grandsons used, with some success, on pheasant. The stock is shorter than I prefer and when I took it on a NM quail hunt I was remarkably unsuccessful which I attributed to the short barrels and stock. Some ~ 15 years later I took the gun on a dove hunt and found that if I kept my head on the stock it was great. I plan to carry it in KS this fall. Now my challenge is to remember the gun has double triggers. 😊

j l born

The only problem with the finger pointing analogy: no one has ever broken a clay nor killed a bird by pointing a finger. That makes it hard to establish whether a short finger is as deadly as a long one.

of course, but I think you get the point (pun noted).

If you like the gun and can shoot it well, it really doesn't matter what anyone else thinks about the barrel length. It only needs to have barrels at least 18.1" long in order for you to stay out of prison. Probably the greatest factor in whether one can shoot a shotgun well is gun fit. With practice, most can adapt to a gun that is too short or has too much drop. We can consciously tell ourselves to shoot under a bird if we know it patterns high. We can tell ourselves to let the target get further out if we know it has a tight choke. But the guns people refer to as "Death Rays" are typically guns that fit and point naturally. A decent shooter will be able to pick up such a gun and hit well with it even if he hasn't touched it in a while. Practice can sharpen our reflexes and refresh our technique and target acquisition. But it will never completely compensate for a gun that simply doesn't point naturally at the target without requiring contortions, distractions, or decision making.

Nothing wrong with a 25" barreled double. I shot a Winchester Model 23 Grande Canadian with 25 1/2" barrels in Argentina and Columbia through the eighties and ninties for dove, perdiz, and codorniz. This was not a light gun. It weighed about 7 pounds. So that may have helped slow down the swing, but I still shoot a short barreled gun reasonably well.

I had a AyA XXV for awhile, not my cup of tea.
But……it wasn’t as bad as the Citori I had with ridiculously short barrels. I think the were 21” or 24” from the factory. Can’t remember the model name….. maybe Special Field or sumpin??? The guy that bought it was as tickled as I was to sell it.

I normally shoot 1 oz. loads in every 12 gauge gun I own. The Churchill XXV mentioned previously would most likely be unbearable with 1 1/4 oz. loads, even though I have no intention of trying it. Sandlapper

I shoot pheasants and prairie grouses with 1.25 oz loads in a 6 lb Cashmore all the time. No big deal at all. If the gun fits well, the recoil is quite manageable.

As originally designed by Churchill, those guns weren't proofed for 1 1/4 oz loads. And having shot driven birds several times in Scotland (of the "normal" variety, not at those shoots which features a lot of birds 50 yards or more in the air), I've never seen anyone shoot loads that heavy at driven birds. They can be killed at 40 yards (which is sufficiently challenging for most mere mortals) with 1 1/8 or even 1 1/16 oz loads. But most "normal" driven birds aren't nearly that "tall". And if you can kill a pheasant flying away from you at 40 yards with 1 1/8 oz of 6 shot, you can certainly kill them as incomers with vitals more exposed with similar loads.

Of course all 1 1/4 oz loads are not equal. Well-known gun writers such as McIntosh, Hill, and Brister praised the old "Super Pigeon" load, which had a modest velocity of 1220 fps and patterned very well. McIntosh put it this way in his book "Shotguns and Shooting", chapter entitled "Gunning John Ringneck": "I wouldn't object too strongly if someone described a 12 gauge, 3 1/4 dram, 1 1/4 ounce charge of hard No.6 as the ultimate all-around pheasant load." I agree. I pattern tested those loads against Winchester's standard Super-X at 1330 fps as well as the then-new pheasant loads at speeds in excess of 1400 fps. The Super Pigeon (unfortunately not easy to find given American ammunition makers' tendency to try to sell both heavier and faster loads as their "premium" pheasant shells) delivered the most pellet strikes in the 30" circle. The Super-X was not far behind. The really fast stuff finished last--and also started with fewer pellets. If it's more killing power you want, that requires more penetration. Moving to 5 shot vs 6 shot is the best way to do that vs increasing velocity or shot charge. Noted ballistician Tom Roster also believes in loads at modest speeds vs what we're being offered these days as premium pheasant loads, both lead and steel. The price you pay for more velocity (and sometimes a heavier shot charge) is more recoil. None of the pheasants I've cleaned to date have been wearing Kevlar. What worked for those classic outdoor writers will still work today.





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I have hunted pheasant, quail, and chukar with several different barrel lengths, the longest being 30 inch SxS and the shortest being either my Citori 12 Upland Special or my 20 Upland Special, each having 25 inch barrels. I have killed more birds with this combination of Ciroris than any other guns I own. I flatly do not like very many of the 30 inch barreled models with the exception of the Dickinson 16 with 30 inch tubes. I can shoot it well, but the overall choice and the guns I always go back to are either of the Citoris. I will say that one one occasion I mistakenly filled my pockets with 1 and 3/8 ounce number 5's while shooting an infestation of pigeons for our landowner. That was a most unpleasant surprise. I havent done that again.