I'm a short barrel fan. My shotguns (mostly) sport 26" barrels and my rifles (mostly) sport 22" barrels. I even bobbed the barrel on my Remington 721 in .300 H&H to 24" and have no regrets. I also own a Sako L-461 in .222 with a 16 1/4" barrel that still holds my prairie dog record of 39 consecutive hits. Further I have a .264 Win Mag with a 23" barrel and no complaints whatever. I'm a believer that barrel length is more emotional than functional as velocity loss is never noticed in the field. Balance can be achieved through other methods than barrel length. Adding a recoil pad can have a greater change of balance than losing 2 or more inches of barrel but that is not normally seen as a reason to not add a full inch of recoil pad.
Loss of resale value might be of greater adversity to go shorter than 22" so let your pocketbook have a say in the matter.....but for me a .308 Winchester with a 20" barrel makes a lot of sense.....especially if one does a fair amount of woods hunting..
Hey.....it's your gun and your hunting tool so do what you think best.
