Sixty years ago, when I was young and painfully thin and very stupid, I borrowed an elderly 32" twelve gauge side-by-side hammer gun, choked full and full. No idea who made the damn thing, but at least I knew enough to be sure the barrels weren't Damascus. It had a narrow curved steel buttplate.

I wanted to see how it patterned with high-brass #6 birdshot.

Now, I knew better. I really did. But as I said, I was pretty stupid.

Wearing a T-shirt over my bony frame I aimed it at the side of an abandoned barn, and just for the unbridled hell of it, cocked both hammers. Of course it doubled, crunching the steel buttplate into my shoulder and nearly giving me whiplash to go with the bruise the color of a ripe eggplant.

Ah, youth.

Sorry about the thread drift, but this talk of long barrels put me back in time.

Carry on.

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Oh well, what the hell.