ha, I hate it for you there! Have lived places like that, and not worth staying, considering my lifestyle. Life is too short to spend with people who do not like you, as one retired DEA pal once told me. My first experience with the Mossberg shorty legal concept was when the guy who invented the whole idea, his Raptor grip, of Shockwave technologies, was simply selling grips. And you could either buy his grip and order up a 14" LE barrel/mag tube/forend (pretty danged expensive counting a base gun), OR simply cut about 2" off a standard Cruiser to get the just over 26" safe legal minimum. After all, that is what the inventor/discoverer of what the law actually allowed, did. He cut a Cruiser, it was agreed by ATF that he had read law correctly, and he only then came up with even cooler looking, but no shorter, birdshead grip and ordered a LE barrel set, and sent that off, as well.

Pretty soon, Mossberg wondered why all their 14" stuff was selling like hotcakes, and cut a deal with the guy...

But I was cheap back when this all started, and simply cut an old Maverick 88 Cruiser bought really cheaply at a pawn shop. At the time, I did not see much difference, as 26" was 26", and I was wrong. And not just about the Mossberg concept, but also in what makes a handy long gun in the car.

Turns out that with a Cruiser grip and shortened barrel, all the extra length is ahead of the left hand, and still has some tendency to bang the muzzle around, while the Shockwave puts excess length between right hand and elbow where it does not matter as long as it does not stick out past elbow, and a lot lot handier in front.

To tie these various short shotgun threads together along with the above CAR and Gigi divergence, into one nice neat Christmas package, as if planned all along that way, I found the same suprising fact as to relation of front hand and handiness with those two long guns, with a suprising winner.

You would think no contest between a 32"/16"bbl CAR and 37"/18"bbl Guide Gun as for handiness, and you would be as wrong as I was. As, like the cut Cruiser, the CAR makes most of shortening at the buttstock. Observe also how far back the handguard is from muzzle on a CAR, and you have a tremendous amount of rifle sticking out past left hand, whether at civ. legal 16" or military 14.5". The forend on GiGi has very little barrel and magazine sticking out past left hand, and all excess length back, again, between right hand and elbow, not causing near the banging around the longer front of the CAR causes....plus, a much more natural and instictive point with a full stock and actual cheek weld.

I am imagining the 20ga double trouble also regulated in your state? Will be honest and say that for what most folk want in a handy shotgun, the Shockwave is a lead sled pig compared to the Pedersoli, and were Shockwaves or cut Mavericks (with bead reinstalled, as I do no jackleg work) legal for you, we would be on the horn now, as the double trouble has completely displaced both, with exception of my always wanting a highest normal cap. pump shorty sans permission slip for ATF to come in and view everything I own. Truthfully, also, the Shockwave will never be fun unless you use AA Low Noise, Reduced Recoil Target Loads whereupon you may as well shoot light loads out of the Pedersoli..

As for legality, since many states do not copy fed law verbatim as for designating a starter definition of "shotgun" excluding the Shockwave or other PG such stuff, even the Shockwave might be illegal where the muzzleloader might be questionable...

BUT, in such places, I would much rather be busted thru ignorance with a capock muzzleloader than with an evil black modern slide action pump...much more likely to stay out of trouble with more classic looking fare than with any of the modern tacticool (cheap for maker) appearing guns, and no cop or judge would buy at all my whining that I had absolutely no idea my evil black 14" pump shotgun might actually be illegal somewhere, while a totally different and also true befuddlement on a muzzleloader much more likely to have serious traction. Perhaps even in your area.

PS-on the Winchester, it was likely originally an aerial gunnery practice gun, it dates from the early 1950s, and at some point the barrel was cut back to nominal 21" M12 riot gun spec, FULL marking lined out, and restamped CYL, never had any notches cut for heat shield, and simply a reissue for "guard gun" once needs changed. This one was also an Island Of Misfit Guns appropriation, the innards were a mess as for rust, but an actual cleaning found very little pitting of anything under the red tropics induced sludge, only grey stains here and there, it had been written off as unserviceable when it seen all the red oozing out after an extended time of being soaked/saturated. Was in a bandsaw pile. I was actually livid with the guys for abandoning such a class act, and was told, "you like it so much, YOU take it," and I did.