My late father-in-law used to tell about the shotguns his father and grandfather were using into the 1950's, and they were always shortening a barrel because the muzzle would somehow get damaged. IIRC, they blew the muzzles off when firing them while obstructed by mud or packed snow, lost them to rust by leaning them muzzle down in the barn, dented them by hitting fenceposts or clay-block structures, etc, etc. They were quite the bunch, and they used up or wore out everything they had because they could not afford to do otherwise.
With one exception, the guns were all inexpensive, break-open singles. I ran across two of the lot on the then-abandoned farm in the 1990's, and they were not useable... the Mass. Arms Co. 12 gauge was still minus the little "rocker" that pushed out the extractor, just as described to me ten years earlier. (Even back in the 1950's, they got the fired hull out of this gun by dropping a carriage bolt down the open barrel!) It still sits propped up in a closet here at the Cat house* only because someone refit a long, old US musket forearm and barrel band to it and did some corncrib inlay work (as shown) to boot... which gives it enough family street cred to warrant keeping.
*As opposed to cathouse.