Quote:
Originally Posted by jce07a
depending on your intended purposes (bird hunting, sporting clays, skeet, trap, etc.) an 18 inch barrel compared to a 26 or 28 inch barrel isnt going to make a whole lot of difference. if you're claiming it as a "sporting rifle" on your paperwork and are actually going to use it in your home then i can see a possible complaint about the extra 10 inches but otherwise it isnt going to make much difference. despite what hollywood says, shortening the barrel isnt going to expand your shot spread dramatically...not movie dramatic anyways. the spread can be more effected by your choke. here is an example chart that shows the differences.
http://media.photobucket.com/image/r...ern_spread.gif |
This is exactly right. And a good example is special purpose Turkey shotguns. they rarely have longer than 20" barrels and yet they shoot the tightest patterns of any other shotgun.
I cut my 870 back to 19" and had the barrel re-reamed and threaded for the rem chokes. I run a jellyhead ported Turkey tube and a 2 rd mag tube extension. It is one of my fav clay pidgeon guns and can bust em 50 yds out or more.