Barrel Length: How short is too short

[MattBordas]

Hey Guys,

I'm thinking about cutting down the barrel on my Affinity 3. At what length do you start to see significant decreases in performance? I know I'm losing velocity and pattern potential but at what length does the loss become so severe that it's a real performance killer

[fmf]

17.9"......

i own a both a 12 and 20 with 18.5 inch barrels and both shoot great, the 12 shoots outstanding. i think you may lose less than 75 fps over a considerably longer barrel (say 26 inches) but patterns don't suffer due to barrel length..  that loss of fps is negligible at turkey hunting distances

[Parkerg31]

https://deltawaterfowl.org/barrel-length-ballistics/

[tikka]

Check with your State laws,   In Michigan it is 18" minimum.