Barrel Length and Today's Powders

[hube1236]

When I bought my shotgun, some members of this board were advocating different length barrels and different chokes for different usages.

On the phone the other day, my friend said that he read somewhere that because of today's steel shot, fast buring powders are used. The shot is max accelerated around 24". Is this true? Also, would the 30" barrel offer any more than a hinderance in the field since all of the duck people I see on OLN use shorter barrels than I own?

 

[maxwayne]

Rather steel or not, the powder is burnt up in a fairly short time. Barrel length is mostly a matter of handling. Some like longer barrels because they follow thru better.

 

[Dave McC]

Hube,bbl length is a non issue for interior ballistics. Short bbled shotguns have a bit more blast and flash, and component selection can mitigate even that.And, any loss of velocity with a selected load in a short bbl is probably less than shsot to shot variance, one bbl and load.

Bbl length has more to do with handling and sight radius than burning all the powder.

A 30" bbl might not be the best choice for a grouse gun, but I'd have no problem with it in a goose pit or cornfield for ringnecks...

And my little 21" bbled Frankenstein gun has done good work on snow geese, tho folks I hunt with have mentioned noise.

 

[Rottweiler]

Ditto that comment about hunting buddies complaining about noise. Then there's the complaints about the basketball size ball'o fire when using loads with Blue Dot.