It has negligible impact on spread. Choke does that. A 12” Mod choked barrel will spread at the same rate as a 30” Mod choked barrel, the spread just starts ever so slightly sooner. It does have a small impact on range, because of velocity, but nobody is using a 12” shotgun to hunt so velocity is a bit of a moot point. Mostly due to sight radius and pointability but a 12” is more suited to home defense.
I beg to differ about the spread. When preparing for turkey hunting, same gun, same turkey choke, same shells, one with 18in barrel and the other 28in and it made a huge difference at 35yds
If the spread was that different, your 18” barrel was likely cylinder or imp cyl, which is most common for short barrels but swappable choke and tighter choke short barrels do exist, and your 28” was likely a tighter choke.
It was litterally a pattern test multiple shells tried with same choke. The only variant was the barrel length. I could see the spread being way tighter on the 28 vs the 18 for every shell.
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u/OkBurner777 Mar 27 '26
Glad it intimidated the others into domestication
Also case in point that shotgun barrel length has little to no effect on projectile velocity, unlike rifle and pistol calibres.