doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Why so long?

Basically, it is the expansion ratio of the burning powder being converted to gas which determines the velocity. A .729" 12 gauge bore 30" long has approximately 12� Cu Inches of capacity. A 3-dram load of black powder has .345 Cu/In. 12�/.345 gives an expansion ratio of around 36+.

Consider that a .30-30 carbine has a ratio of about 10, a .30-06 6-8 depending on barrel length & some of the big magnums go as low as around 4, & the shotgun is using faster burning powder. Even Black Powder burns faster than do most rifle powders, except perhaps the very fastest ones.

As far as the ballistics go you can do about anything you want to do in a 12 gauge with 26" barrels or for sure 28". Everything else is handling qualities.
Barrel length is mostly "FAD".

My personal favorite is 28" in a shotgun. This is based a lot on aesthetics, I am comfortable with a length of pull around 14" & to be a double shotgun looks well proportioned when the barrels are approximately around twice the pull length. Shorter barrels look stubby & long ones look like stilts. I have only ever shot a couple of shotguns with 32" barrels both heavy 10's, one a 3�" magnum. For pass shooting at Canada Geese, this was fine, I have no desire for a gun I plan on carrying around through the fields to be any longer than 30" & truly prefer them @ 28".

I have not done an extreme amount of Duck Hunting, but to the best of my recollection, every duck I ever killed was done with a 2 3/4" 12 gauge wearing 26" tubes choked .012"/.024". I used 1�oz of either #5 or #6 shot. I did some Swamp hunting for mostly Woodies & Mallard calling them into holes in the timber, so not really long range shooting. I hunted a few times with my late Father-in-Law in southern IL where we hunted the retention ponds around coal mines. When they dug these ponds they dug out the earth & piled it around the pond making berms about 8-10 feet high all the way around the pond. We would ease up to the top of the bank & locate the ducks, then back down & walk around the outside & try to come up at the right spot. We would crawl up the steep side & when we got to the flat on to stand & jump the ducks & shoot as they took off. These were mostly Redheads & at that point could only kill two. He was shooting an early Rem (pre-1100) gas auto with 1 7/8oz 3" loads of #4 as I recall, & I was still using my 1� oz of #6. After one Foray when I had knocked down my second duck He remarked, "I'll have to say one thing for your little gun, "It'll Reach Out There & Touch Someone". Many of you may recall when "Ma Bell" used that slogan pushing their long distance plans. All my Duck shooting was done when Lead was legal, so the shot all reflects lead shot.

That expansion ratio is of course why the .22 LR reaches its peak velocity in 16 to 18 inches of barrel. Beyond that, the expansion of the gases simply falls short of overcoming the friction of driving the bullet. I have a Win model 67 single shot .22LR with 27" barrel. It will leave about the same amount of "unburned" powder flakes in the barrel as will a little 04 with about a 20" barrel, or for that matter, my Ruger Mark 1 with the 6�" barrel, or is it 6 3/4".

Gil,
I believe you are correct that 32" barrels were standard on NID 10 gauge 3.5" magnums. The ones I have encountered were all 32" except I did encounter a Grade 4 with 30" barrels which I believe is original.
Another thing I noticed with almost every of these big Ithaca guns is that they almost all have Hawkins recoil pads, does this hold true with yours?
thanks,
Stanley

I own shoot and hunt with my 10 gauge 36" Parker Top lever hammer gun 36" bbls and a 6 frame weighting in at 15 lbs. Big Fun It's impossible to stop your swing once ya get it moving!!

Craig,

Neat blind material...is that woven?

The discussion on the long barrels seems to be centered on the ballistics, but is the longer sighting plane not relevant? Are the tales of the longer sighting plane an urban legend? I do personally seem to shoot the longer barrel guns better, but is that just psychological?

The extra weight would assist momentum of swing. Maybe age but for me there's little "sighting;" they fly so fast there's little time to get a 30" barrel out of the blind and pray for the right lead. Extra length for me wouldn't be an advantage.

I certainly would Not have to worry about a stopped swing with a 36" barreled 16 lb gun. There simply would be no swing to stop for an old geezer like me.
My 7�lb 26"er has all the momentum I need.

Stanley, by the time the gun arrived in my hands (for the first time) almost 40 years ago, the original pad had been replaced with a non-original. I had that one replaced with a period appropriate pad which btw, wasn't the sunburst pad, which wasn't big enough for the magnums at the time of production. Here's the gun and discussion by Researcher of the pads used on the big Ithaca. Gil
http://doublegunshop.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=359151&page=2

A case can be made for "better" patterns due to lower gas pressure at the muzzle, longer sighting radius, higher swing effort, but probably not being 6" closer to the target. Have they ever been proven? Nope!! Can they be proven? I doubt it. There is a problem in testing called signal to noise ratio. I'm willing to speculate that the signal to noise ration is just too low to sort out any differences at a cost anyone is likely to pay.

Unprovable theories make for interesting debates.

DDA

If you use one & handload, then the speculation is gone away.
O.M