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Shotgun Muzzle Flash

John A.

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Personally, I have shot a lot in low light and at night.

But only while using an 18 inch barrel, I do not ever recall getting any muzzle flash from my shotguns. Regardless of shell I'm shooting. Even with high brass shells.

So, I'm wondering you guys that are using shorter barrels, are you experiencing muzzle flash when it's dark?

The main reason I ask, I'm curious at what length the powder fully burns in a shotgun. Most shells don't gain or lose hardly any velocity whether going from a short or long barrel, which makes me believe that the powder burns out relatively quickly in the barrel.

Until this evening, I thought the powder achieved full burn in about 10 inches. But this video from a guy that is using a 12.5" barrel and has obvious flash, so that would indicate that I was off (wrong) in my estimate.

So, what are you guys seeing with the 14" barrels?

 
After speaking with @Elbert Garrett , he showed me a video from the side of him shooting his shockwave (14") and he did have some muzzle flash. So, that told me with my earlier estimates of powder burning out within the first 10" or so of barrel is incorrect. And the video above did show a massive muzzle flash, at it's 12.5" long, so again, I've been wrong in my estimates.

Shells obviously achieve full powder burn somewhere between 14 and 18 inches.

The end of this video is using a Winchester 1300. While there is some smoke that you can see with the flashlight, there is no flash from the barrel.
If you just want to see the shotgun, skip to about 3:25


That means that barrels over 18 or 20 inches is only going to see a marginal increase in velocity compared to the shorter ones. At least with modern smokeless powder. Black powder shells should see some increase with longer barrels, but it's not very often that you would run across a black powder shell these days.
 
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