Wednesday, November 30, 2011

How does the length of a shotgun barrel affect shooting it?

How does the length of a shotgun barrel affect shooting it? For example about 20" for personal defense or 28" for hunting. What's the difference?|||at one time when we had only much slower burning powders a 26 to 28" barrel was needed to reach standard velocities. Going with a 20" barrel significantly reduced the velocity of the shot. This is also when you used to run across 30, 32, and even 36" 'goose barrels' as those extra long barrels were able to capture every last bit of energy in the gunpowder and use it to have the highest velocity shot.





Now with modern powders a wad of shot will reach 95% of full velocity at around 12" to 15" of barrel, and the gain from each additional inch of barrel is extremely small.





HOWEVER most wingshooters agree that the longer barrel swings more smoothly which allows for better accuracy vs small moving targets, so 26" barrels are the norm for hunting





Home defense, the 20" or 18" barrel is preferred because it is easier to manuever around a house with a shorter barrel. 16" or 14" would be even better but those are restricted by some outdated silly laws.





P.S. Contrary to what TV and movies would have you think a shortened barrel does NOT increase the spread of the shot, not until you get down to about 6" or 8" of barrel, but by then you are significantly reducing your shot velocity (and hence it's power) for a very small increase in spread. And honestly serious shotgunners do the opposite, they put special chokes in their barrel to keep the spread of the shot tight.|||The choke determines the pattern, not the barrel length.





The longer the barrel, the longer the sight radius, the easier it is to hit things a long ways away, such as geese. As a bonus, you may get a bit more velocity from more complete powder combustion. Noise will also be reduced.





A shorter barrel is easier to follow a fast moving target, close up with. It makes it more adept to environments with obstructions, such as walls, doors, dense underbrush, etc. It may suffer a bit in velocity, but does that really matter when you are welcoming an uninvited visitor with 1 1/2 oz of buck shot across the hallway?





Notice how the shot pattern has nothing to do with it? If you want a short shotgun for hunting deer in dense underbrush, you want a short barreled shotgun with a full choke. For home defense, you would be better served with a short barreled shotgun with a cylinder choke.|||Shotgun barrel length only effects it if it has no choke. Without a choke the barrel decides how spread out the shot will be cut to the time it stays in the barrel. So an 18" barrel will have a larger pattern at close ranges than a 26" barrel. However a 26" barrel will have the same pattern at say, 30 yards as that 18" at 5 yards.|||Nothing. But the longer barrel does give more velocity and better sight picture due to the extra length. It's not the barrel but the choke that affects spread. Your standard shorter 18-20 inch barrel is usually a cylinder bore; there is no choke so your spread is wider. On longer barrels they tend to either have type of choke designed into the barrel or can take detachable ones. Those affect shot spread.|||The condensed version of it is that a long barrel offers a longer sighting plane and a smoother swing than a shorter barrel. This makes it much easier to point, not aim, the shotgun to where you want your load of shot to meet the target.





Other than that, a long shotgun barrel offers little more than increased bulk.|||White, The longer the barrel, the longer the shot will stay together before it starts to spread out.

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