Look, when you are on the bench, you need to be wearing hearing protection.., no matter what length barrel you choose.
Secondly, for hunting, carry, treestand, blinds, and all around handiness a short barrel is unbeatable. So, with that in mind, a 20" barrel is plenty long.
PLEASE DO NOT get caught up in that "longer is faster" mentality. It just doesn't amount to anything in the field.
IF you are tempted to go long for that reason, I would highly recomend that you read up on Mr Charlie Sisk's experiments with a number of cartridges in which he reduced barrel lengths one inch at a time from 27" on down to 20." The payoff is insignificant balistically.
If you want to go short, as in 20" and you need ballance, that is you need more weight forward, than by all means put that weight into a heavier conture instead of extra length.
That 260 will do just as much killing with a 18"-20" barrel length as it would with a 22"-24" barrel length.
Again, let me encourage you to concider checking out Mr. Sisk's experiments.
Scott
