I will go a little bit against the grain on this one. I have used a 21 inch for much of my turkey hunting the past three years or so. Maneuvering through timber with a short barrelled gun is a luxury campared to traditional length barrels.

However, I have never got the results that I read about here when it comes to patterning no matter what choke/shot combination I have used. I wouldn't want to shoot past forty yards and even at forty if there is any way to avoid that shot I do. So I thought I would do some experimenting.

This pastwinter and spring I have been playing around with a ridiculously long barrel (see the "If Size Matters..." post). Guess what, the gun patterns better with the longer tube (of course the first twenty one inches is the original barrel) using the same loads and chokes that I used before. I would not call it "earthshattering" but it is noticeable. That said I still don't get those extraordinary patterns that I read about here sometimes. You know; the ones that mow everything down out to fifty, sixty, and even seventy yards. There are some other "benefits" I found with this 57" barrel but that is a story for another day.

The bottom line however is this. Does the better pattern I experience with the longer barrel exceed the convenience of the shorter one?? The answer is simply no.