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Little Creek
PostPosted: Thu Aug 24, 2017 9:34 am  Reply with quote
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Location: Anchorage, AK

I stay away from guns with cut barrels. They might do for a cowboy action gun, but not for general bird hunting. They also are harder to sell and don't fetch much money. I bought and later sold a Flues 16 with cut barrels for $200 a few years ago.
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Little Creek
PostPosted: Thu Aug 24, 2017 9:36 am  Reply with quote
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Location: Anchorage, AK

This post is meant to relate to the post on this gun:

https://papas-koop.myshopify.com/products/c15701
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16gaugeguy
PostPosted: Thu Aug 24, 2017 12:02 pm  Reply with quote
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What Little Creek is telling us makes a lot of sense when it comes to any type of double gun. Cut the barrels and both barrel regulation and chokes go out the window. We are also removing the section where the barrels are joined at the muzzle end. Not a good idea unless the barrels are professionally re-joined. (I don't know a thing about cowboy shooting, but I'm hoping those who use sawed off doubles have them properly re-joined at the muzzle ends again.)

As for repeaters and single shots, it's usually okay if a cylinder choke suits your needs or if you have some aftermarket choke tubes installed (or a poly choke). I've had Mike Orlen install choke tubes in a number of my shortened repeater barrels with excellent results (uncut doubles too). Of course, I've used some sense when shortening these barrels. The shortest aren't under 23 inches. That's about as short as I've been able to go and still retain good balance and handling for upland bird hunting.
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Dave in Maine
PostPosted: Thu Aug 24, 2017 3:29 pm  Reply with quote



Joined: 12 Sep 2010
Posts: 1972
Location: Maine

In addition to removing whatever choke there may have been, probably throwing the regulation out of whack, and removing the spacer/regulation block connection at the muzzle, cutting down a double's barrels will yield a botched pattern. This might not reveal itself at the relatively short ranges of CAS or thicket shooting, but it will show.

I went through this interesting learning experience the first day of last year's pheasant season. My new-to-me drilling has 23.6 inch barrels choked modified and modified. I hit a pheasant hard with one Herters' #6 and one W-W Super Speed (paper) #5 at about 25 yards. I knocked it down immediately. But I found, on eating the bird, that while my shots had definitively broken both wingbones and both thighs, there were no - zero - pellet wounds in the body of the bird.

While I was happily able to eat without fear of breaking a tooth, I was nonetheless dismayed to find a bird-sized hole in my pattern.

This was confirmed a week or so later when I hit - hard - another pheasant at about 20 yards with 2 Remington Express #6, from the same gun. A friend - a very skilled doublegun smith - witnessed this and the bird getting up to run. He commented, in his dry British way and after the dog had finished running laps with the bird, that while I'd hit the bird hard, "those short barrels will have 'inconsistent' patterns".

Frankly, I think I get better, harder hits and kills with my French gun shooting the relatively mild RST 2 1/2 inch 1 ounce loads. But the 4 inches more barrel the French gun has, likely has a lot to do with it.

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Little Creek
PostPosted: Thu Aug 24, 2017 4:22 pm  Reply with quote
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I had a Remington Model 11 with a 26" barrel that had been cut> no choke. It was death on cottntails jumping under foot but I only shot one pheasant with it, at about 20 yards. I wounded another and missed tow other shots at a flush of several birds. Promptly sold the gun.

I have had several chokes opened by gunsmiths but have no use for cut barreled guns.
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Laxcoach1
PostPosted: Thu Aug 24, 2017 5:35 pm  Reply with quote



Joined: 06 Feb 2011
Posts: 59
Location: Lynchburg, VA

There are exceptions. For instance, I have a Smith 2E 16 that started life as a 29" gun choked F/F that is cut to 27". Chokes now measure IC/M at the muzzle, and it is deadly on doves and upland birds. Reason being the Smiths had about 3" of parallel choke from the factory.
Consistent pattern? I don't know, but the many birds bagged with it didn't like it.
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Natty Bumpo
PostPosted: Fri Aug 25, 2017 4:18 am  Reply with quote



Joined: 10 Jul 2006
Posts: 87
Location: Traverse City, MI

Little Creek wrote:
I have had several chokes opened by gunsmiths but have no use for cut barreled guns.


Agree, 100 %. And , especially so on double guns. One needs to be careful when buying aged doubles, especially if the barrel lengths are "odd".

Balance is often affected, as well, and not in a good way.

NB

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