32" O/U 12 gauge for skeet?

[sbwaters]

A Sporting Clays range I just joined has rental shotguns. I have been lusting after a 30" O/U 12 gauge for skeet. (I use a Remington 1100 I bought some 40 years ago for casual skeet.)

I shouldered a 32" Beretta 690 black that felt wonderful and shouldered easy. I can see it would be sweet for sporting clays.

How difficult is it to shoot skeet with a 32" O/U?

 

[kudu]

Actually the longer barrels have been overshadowing short 26-28" barrels for the last 15 years or so in skeet. I shoot a 30" 682 Beretta and wish it was 32". The longer sight plain helps with not only keeping it lined up but in follow through on the targets. I shoot a Remington 11-87 with a 30" barrel quite often also and it seems just right, but with the receiver it is still a bit longer than a 32" O/U. If it feels good, chances are it will shoot well for you as long as everything lines up for you. If you can afford it I believe you will like it and not regret the purchase and it will serve you extremely well as a skeet gun and for sporting clays.

 

[Armored farmer]

+1 on kudus comments.

There's a high percentage of clay target success lies between the ears of the shooter.
....if you like it, and it works for you....go for it.
Be happy.

 

[sbwaters]

If you can afford it I believe you will like it

Darn it! Good advice. The question is the “if you can afford it.”

 

[bannockburn]

sbwaters

If it feels good, chances are it will shoot well for you as long as everything lines up for you. If you can afford it I believe you will like it and not regret the purchase and it will serve you extremely well as a skeet gun and for sporting clays.

This is some great advice! Always have had a soft spot for Beretta O/U shotguns. They just feel right and balance perfectly for me.

 

[sappyg]

Darn it! Good advice. The question is the “if you can afford it.”

Don't dwell so much on the cost of the gun if skeet and SC is something you enjoy more than several times a month. Targets and ammo will soon exceed the cost of the gun. I wish I hadn't done the math but, I could easily buy the gun I've been using for the past 9 months just in the cost of ammo alone.

To add to others comments on the OP, I think 32" barrels would be fine for skeet. Most all targets are hit by the shooter and not length of the barrel. It's better to know the gun and rely on your instinct than depend on, or apprehensive of, the barrel length. If it feels good it will hit good for you. And, those Berreta 690 feel real good to me.

 

[sbwaters]

Thnx, all.

This may sound strange, but I am thinking of selling my decent cello, which I bought to learn 20 years ago -- instead of a sports car or trophy wife for my “mid-life crisis” [never got a sports car and have my original, lovely wife]. Fingers don’t fret well playing Bach’s Prelude #1 now.

With the money I could fund a Beretta 690 Black. I already reload 12 gauge. “Late-life crisis”? I think not. Just as happy shooting as I am working in the garden.

 

[JohnnyFlake]

If your truly serious about sheet shooting, a 32" barrel/barrels is too long! Most serious competition shooters use 26"/28" open skeet barrels. At the short distances that skeet are shot, a 2" or 3" wider spread makes a huge difference, especially in competition shooting. Yes, you see a lot of skeet that are dusted, but you also see a lot, that only a single pellet took down.

 

[mudstud]

If your truly serious about sheet shooting, a 32" barrel/barrels is too long! Most serious competition shooters use 26"/28" open skeet barrels. At the short distances that skeet are shot, a 2" or 3" wider spread makes a huge difference, especially in competition shooting. Yes, you see a lot of skeet that are dusted, but you also see a lot, that only a single pellet took down.

LOL!!

 

[kudu]

30 years ago 26"-28" skeet barrels were the norm, mid 90's everyone serious were going toward longer barrels of at least 30". I haven't shot registered competition skeet since late 90's but still shoot 200-300 birds a month and drop by when our club has a registered shoot and say Hi to some of the old guys I used to shoot with, haven't seen any skeet guns used by AA-AAA shooters less than 30", most are running 32". All have tube sets for small gauges as well, not the traditional 4 barrel set from Browning or 4 1100's from Remington like they had 30 years ago. Not saying that there aren't pockets across the country where you find quite a few shorter barrels guns, there are a lot of them out there still being shot.

Here is my Beretta 682 Supersport with Kolar AAA sporting tubes and all chokes and a carrier barrel for matched weight. I am guessing I have about 80,000 shells through this gun and I got it used from a friend that had probably 30,000 through it, still holding strong. I rarely shoot the 12 gauge barrel unless shooting sporting.

If you have fallen in love with that 692, it will serve you well, they are a beautiful gun.

 

[sbwaters]

kudu! Sweet!

 

[kudu]

It is a working gun, it has scratches, gouges and dings all over it. If I had to replace it it would probably be well over $5000 with all the tube set and case plus carrier barrel. Still wish it had a 32" barrel, but the 30" does fine.

 

[JohnnyFlake]

I use to shoot competition Skeet and Trap back in the late 70s & all of the 80s. I know and understand the reasoning behind longer barrels when shooting Trap. The very same should be true, in reverse, for shorter barrels in Skeet. The shortest allowed being 26". Can anyone explain the reasoning of using longer barrels in Skeet, where you want the widest pattern, you can put in the air?

 

[cfullgraf]

I shot competitive skeet in the 1990s with a 28" tubed Citori Skeet grade. 28" barrels were the length to have at the time. My 20 gauge averages with tubes in the gun were better than my 12 gauge averages (no tubes) to the point that I ended up shooting 20 gauge in the 12 gauge events most of the time.

I tried all sorts of added counterweights on the barrel so that the weight while shooting 12 gauge would simulated the 20 gauge tubes but I never found the sweet spot.

When I stopped shooting competitive skeet, the longer barrels (30"-32") were beginning to be used as they were also gaining popularity in sporting clays.

While a longer barrel may not make alot of difference for the super top shooters, it will definitely help the up and coming shooter. In the 1990s, many of the top shooters would shoot a tubed O/U in 20, 28 and .410 events and would shoot an auto loader in the 12 ga event. I'm afraid I have not kept track and do not know what folks are shooting today except that longer barrels are more popular than in the 1990s.

In the 1990s, you had to shoot a 100 straight to get into the shoot off to even have a glimmer of hope to win the skeet tournament. I'm sure it is similar today and any help the equipment can provide is an advantage.

As I always say, "the swing is the thing in skeet". A longer barrel will help keeping the swing going promoting the proper follow through.

At least for me, when I start missing, I've usually stopped my swing early.

 

[kudu]

On a pattern board I have an 870 upland special with I believe a 24" barrel, it will throw a pattern indistinguishable from my 30" barrel on my 11-87 with the same skeet choke installed. The same was true when I switched to a modified choke to try to measure any discernible difference, if it was there I couldn't find it with a tape measure. But the longer barrel did help with the swing and sight plane.

I did a lot of pattern board testing years ago along with several other members of our gun club to see what different chokes would do. Most of the time now I use a cylinder bore choke on my skeet shooting, depending on what shells I use. My reloads are light and slow and hang in a tight even pattern with no holes blown in them.

Take away what you will from this, but I don't believe that a longer barrel is in any way a handicap for skeet shooting.

 

[CoalTrain49]

I use to shoot competition Skeet and Trap back in the late 70s & all of the 80s. I know and understand the reasoning behind longer barrels when shooting Trap. The very same should be true, in reverse, for shorter barrels in Skeet. The shortest allowed being 26". Can anyone explain the reasoning of using longer barrels in Skeet, where you want the widest pattern, you can put in the air?

Actually barrel length has nothing to do with the pattern. That depends entirely on the amount of choke. You can get a 32" gun to pattern the same as 26" gun using the same choke. I used to shoot a skeet gun with 26" barrels and it worked just fine. Longer barrels have always been the norm for trap because the weight of the longer barrels moved the balance of the gun toward the muzzle. That in turn made the gun less responsive which isn't a bad thing for longer targets.

My guess is the 32" trend started with choke tubes and sporting clays. If you shoot trap seriously a dedicated gun is necessary. Not so for SC and Skeet as both guns will work if the gun is mounted when the bird is called for. The real kicker is shooting International style where the gun has to be mounted after the target leaves. A 28" barrel is prefered here by many, but nobody shoots low gun in the US. I'm not sure they do in Europe anymore but I think they do. I shot some skeet in Europe in the 70's.

I always prefered a 28" barrel for SC and skeet. That is also the prefered length for an upland game gun. Both of those games tried to emulate game shooting in the beginning. It got weird real fast.

Like someone said, it's more of a head game than anything.

 

[sappyg]

I shot 2 rounds of Skeet today with my 34" BT99 trap gun. It wasn't intentional. Long story short, I only took my trap gun to the range today and the trap remote had been struck by lightening. Skeet was the only option I had.

Barrel length didn't really cause a problem for me. Pairs were the main issue so I shot everything as a single. Stage 8 was nearly impossible but Otherwise lead was the same. Starting the gun was a chore and once it's moving you ain't stopping it or making a swing correction easily. I never actually noticed the barrel length as a disadvantage. Weight wasn't a factor either. Balance was the bigger issue. Compound that by the fact that I'm not that good of a shot and the results were dismal. I still beat my friend who was shooting 28" barrels but barrel length wasn't the reason why he lost.

It's the Indian not the arrow... Sometimes.

 

[kudu]

I have run many skeet rounds with a full choke, but none with my dedicated trap gun. A model 12 Winchester with 30" barrel full choke. It is not so much the choke as the gun is set up for trap with a pretty high 90/10 pattern. Just can't seem to float the skeet targets that much and keep the lead at the same time. My other guns set up for me about 60/40 give or take. I can adjust a skeet gun to shoot trap, but not so much the other way around.

 

[sbwaters]

Never had shot an O/U until Sporting Clays and a rented Browning 725 30" yesterday. Shouldered okay, but, as a beginner, you can’t take my score as indicative. In the shop afterwards, I shouldered a used 32" Beretta 690 O/U and its balance was so nice!

 

[CoalTrain49]

Vincent Hancock, an American skeet shooter has won several Olympic gold metals using a DT10 with 28" barrels.

I think it really depends on the barrel weight and overall balance of the gun. 30" may feel like 28" depending on the gun.

I used to shoot skeet with 26" barrels but I think 28" and 30" is the norm these days. I still have the gun I used in the 70's. I'm waiting for short barrels to come back into vogue before I sell it.