doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Barrel length

A question I have had several times in the past and never asked: Why are barrel lengths in the US primarily in the 26,28, 30 inch range while many barrels of English made guns are in numbers like 27 or 29? Are our US stated even numbers a conversion from a metric measurement in Europe? I know this is probably a ridiculous sounding question to many of you, but it just hit me this morning when I saw a set of 27 inch barrels on a Lang and I thought I would get an answer once and for all. Thanks.

Perry: I think 27 inches is very close to a common metric dimension. I know that when I was in Spain and ordered a custom s x s that it came with approx. 27" barrels. And I suspect +/-29" would be another. And when they are up for sale on this side of the pond, the seller may use that dimension in inches (either 27 or 29). just speculation. Gil

Truth is British gunmakers would give the customer whatever he was willing to pay for. It is a metric issue, or conversion by and large. A lot of Spanish guns are 27” which is 68.58mm. 70mm would be 27.56” so 27” is a slight compromise. 29” is 73.66. Some English makers used 29” to differentiate their guns being slightly lighter. 25” was the brainchild of WWGreener which is 63.5mm. The metric to inches is a bit messy. You see a lot of 27 & 29” Spanish guns which were common factory legends unlike American guns which would almost always have been cut down to be those legends. German and Italian guns are commonly seen in 27&29”as well.

There was a time not too long ago which the prevailing wisdom was 30” is too long for a fast handling double and 25-26” was where the market was. Now guns with 30” seem more sellable and those with 32” are even in more demand. 25-26” are very hard to sell. I like double more for handling, feel if you want, than any flat statistics.

Ky, did you mean 25" was the brainchild of Churchill ? I was not aware of the Greener in this development.

As to 29" a lot of Dicksons were made in this length. I have a Purdey with original 27" barrels.

Yes Daryl, senior moment. Got distracted by autocorrect and retyped the wrong name. Churchill was the driving force. But I’ve seen a lot of other makers who built 25” guns for their customers. I owned a Greener 25” for a bit. Long gone sad to say.

Up to the late 1890’s 30 inches was generally considered the standard length for the barrels on 12-bore game gun, although I am sure there are plenty of exceptions.

This was viewed as being the length required to achieve a complete burn from a black powder 12 bore cartridge, thus reducing the smoke and flash as well as moving it a bit further from your face.

With the adoption of smokeless powders less length was needed for combustion, and 28 inches became regarded as the standard with XXV (Churchill), 26, 27 and 29 inch being variously offered for promotional reasons.

There is Churchill XXV 12 bore 3” Wildfowler in Holts next sale.

The present trend to longer barrels seems to be due to the feeling that they are more effective on high driven pheasants.

True all London gunmakers had customers they catered to. If they wanted 27 they would be more than happy to. There was a time when gunmakers would make up a few guns and they did so in the 29 length. It was called "The London Length". That way if a customer came into the shop and wanted a 28" gun or one came in and wanted a 30" gun the salesman there in the shop could most likely talk them into the 29" gun.
As far as gunmakers catering to their clients, I once read an article that Donald Dallas wrote that a client went into Boss & Co. and asked for a self opener. In 1909 Boss did not make that gun. So down the street to Purdey they went and bought an action. They took it back and engraved it in the Boss pattern. Hence a Boss that was actually a Purdey.

If you convert the other way, I think it is more obvious. The pretty standard barrel lengths in Europe for both shotguns and rifles were and are 600, 650, 700 and 750 (mm). Converted to inches these are all within a tenth or so of 23.5, 25.5, 27.5 and 29.5 inches. I presume rough barrels were sold back and forth between all the suppliers and the English finished them at the odd numbers so either British or European lengths would be long enough to finish out.

The UK govt. adopted the metric system in 1965 and, as in Canada, many of the citizens still think of length in imperial. If your odd-inch-length British barrels are pre-1965, then I wouldn't think metric conversion has anything to do with it.

My Husqvarna 310s are 70 cm and 72 cm which equates to 27 9/16-inch and 28 3/8-inch on my Lufkin dual measure tape.

Poor Jimmy just gave up when the yahoos in this country just couldn't comprehend the metric system!!