I got to respond again because a moderately short barrel i.e. 24" does not give up any significant velocity over a 30" barrel. As far as energy is concerned, energy is a result of weight of projectile and velocity. So if a #5 pellet is moving at 1200 fps it has the same energy regardless of the length of the barrel it was fired from. As Maytom already pointed out the loss of velocity between a 24" barrell and a 30" barrell is marginal at best.