barrel length for deer hunting

[cajun 48]

The gun is a 870 express 3" chamber. I have two barrels for it and was wondering which would be better for deer hunting.
1st is a 18" cyl choke (my h/d barrel) no vent bead sight
2nd is a 28" rem choke (modified) vent rib bead sight (not opposed to buying
an imp cyl choke tube).
Which would be the better choice. range will be 25-50yds.
thanks for the assist. aj b

 

[kmrcstintn]

I'll share this and it might help...

http://www.ask.com/bar?q=hi+viz+sight&page=1&qsrc=121&ab=0&u=http://www.hivizsights.com/

a daylight gathering high visibility sight that snaps onto barrels without ribs; I have the 'older' version that only comes with a single color insert; mine is orange and sits on my 'pseudo' security barrel (an old C-Select...'poly choke' barrel for a Mossberg 500 sut to 18.5" with a single metal bead); I 'snapped' the hi viz sight onto the barrel and moved it up next to the bead; BTW...I would use the 18" barrel (lighter to carry & easier to manuever in thickets and underbrush or in a blind or in a treestand)

 

[TAB]

the thing about shot gun barrels is... they are all diffrent. you can take two barrels made one right after the other and you will get diffrent patterns out of them. personally, I'd rather have a longer barrel so I had a longer sight radius, that being said, 28" might be a little long if your hunting in heavy bush or from a blind.

 

[Sunray]

"...18" cyl choke..." Use slugs. Even with a bead sight they can be remarkably accurate at 25 to 50 yards.
You may want to look into a rifle sighted barrel though. Either a smooth bore or rifled. The 100 yard accuracy can be astounding with the right ammo. Under 3" at 100, isn't unusual.
You do have to try as many brands as you can to find the ammo your shotgun shoots best though. Then sight in, same as you would for a centre fire rifle.