Barrel length for Waterfowl

Tater · #1 01-16-2005, 06:49 PM

What's a good barrel length/choke combo for Waterfowl? I'm mostly shooting at ducks at about 30-40yds with occasional shots a little farther and maybe some geese. I'll be buying a new shotgun later this year, probably a Mossberg cuz I like their Accu-choke setup and cuz their pretty inexpensive, good shottin guns. What say you?

I guess I should add that this will be chambered for 3" shells.

kt · #2 01-16-2005, 10:20 PM

when i bought my beretta i wasnt happy that all i could find was a 30 inch barrel. well 6 years later, i think i can swing on close teal and drop long geese just as good as the next, a friend of mine just bought a benelli with only a 26 incher after shooting nothing but 30" his whole life. he does just as well on the whole spectrum of birds and shots. in the brush on a jump shoot of course that shorter bbl is easier to get around through the sticks, other wise its all in the choke for the most part, i believe it was said that over 18" is sufficient to burn any modern powder charge, some one here could help with that maybe. i couldnt see getting much shorter than a 26 inch and most dealers will stock 28" and maybe 30" as standard on the shelf guns. see what feels good to you that all. good luck with the shooting and buying
kt

Tater · #3 01-16-2005, 10:32 PM

Sounds like Uncle was right: a 28" barrel would be good for just about anything with the right choke.

skeet · #4 01-16-2005, 11:40 PM

To be very honest bbl length really doesn't matter all that much. I have probably shot about half the geese I have shot with a 30" bbl...mainly cuz that is what I thought i needed. The rest have almost all been shot with a 26" bbl. Mainly cuz I found out it really doesn't matter....But coming out of a pit or any kind of blind is really much easier with a shorter bbl. I am presently using a 24 " Beretta Extrema...and find it is just fine

fabsroman · #5 01-17-2005, 01:18 AM

The longer barrel tends to help the ineperienced shooter a lot. It has a longer sighting plane and since the gun weighs more it makes it more difficult for the shooter to stop his swing early (i.e., not use the proper follow thru). With that said, all my sporting o/u's are 30" barrels and all my autos are 28" barrels. The reason for the 28" barrel on the autos is because the 3"+ receiver on the auto makes up for the 2" shorter barrel. The only shotgun I own with a barrel shorter than 28" is a 26" BPS with a IC fixed choke 26" barrel, but I also own a full fixed choke 30" barrel for that gun, and the other gun is a youth model Beretta 391 with a barrel shorter than 26".

Yes, there was the debate many years ago about most powder burning in any barrel longer than 18" and there were actually articles out about it too. That thread was almost 3 years ago when I first joined this site and it ended up getting pretty ugly and a member was banned from the site. I don't think I will ever forget that thread. So, barrel length has nothing to do with velocity or choke constriction.

With that said, a shorter barrel might have shorter forcing cones, but I highly doubt that too. Plus, I would doubt that a Mossberg has lengthy forcing cones, but I don't know much about those guns so I might be wrong.

Glad to see that you have really taken a liking to waterfowling Tater.

trex · #6 01-17-2005, 09:20 AM

I like the shorter barrels for everything myself. 26" at the most. One thing about a short barrel in a blind is the noise. For that reason I wouldn't want anything much shorter than 26" in a goose blind. I have my best luck w/ a Briley Light Modified choke for duck hunting. Seems like it'll shoot anything from 4's to 2's really well.

Tater · #7 01-17-2005, 10:36 AM

45 minutes of bordom followed by 10 seconds of pure adrenaline.

fabsroman · #8 01-17-2005, 12:13 PM

That is why I think it is important to have good friends to hunt with. It makes the 45 minutes pass quicker.

By the way, hunting has a lot of boredom in it. I remember when I first started hunting whitetails. I killed one my first 15 minutes, but after that I spent days and days on stand before I killed another. Deer hunting still has long bouts of boredom in it, but that is okay.

Dove hunting and upland hunting are about the only hunting that I find with very short periods of boredom in them. There are usually enough doves coming around to make it somewhat interetsting most of the time and with upland you have to walk all the time so it keeps you occupied.

Then again, with waterfowling there have been days where the geese and ducks kept on coming from shooting time until we limited out, and those are the really good days that make all the boring time worthwhile.